Bhubaneswar, Aug 20: Another setback in Odisha railway sector was seen in the reply to a RTI query which stated that no rail wagon factory would be built in Sitalapalli in Ganjam district. This is because the place has a ‘reduced wagon requirement’. The RTI query was filed by Bolangir based RTI activist, Hemant Panda. The setup of the factory, supposed to be implemented in public-private partnership (PPP) mode was announced in 2011-12 by the then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and had sought around 100 acres of land. In this year’s Railway Budget, a token amount of Rs 1,000 was allocated for the manufacturing unit that had raised serious “doubts” over the project’s implementation. As a result, the ruling BJD has taken this opportunity to reiterate its cry of ‘Central neglect’ and so has the Congress.
Notably, In April, the Centre had confirmed that the Narla rail wagon project, announced in 2013-14 railway Budget, had been shifted from Odisha to Andhra Pradesh due to “feasibility” reasons. Then again four months earlier the Centre decided to shift the proposed rail wagon maintenance workshop at Narla in Kalahandi district.
