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Puri (Orissa) : Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has urged the Railway Ministry to complete all the projects that were stopped midway since long due to ''non-allocation'' of funds.
Patnaik, after flagging off a new weekly express train to Surat and the extension of Bhubaneswar-Raipur inter city train to Puri at a formal function here, said the Railways was earning about Rs 5,000 crore revenue from the state.
He alleged that the ministry was not spending enough funds for the development of facilities in the state.
The Chief Minister urged the Railways to complete the Puri-Khurdha road double tracking work, which had been stopped at Delang, at the earliest.
Patnaik said his government had repeatedly approached the ministry to complete the projects, which started long back, for keeping pace with the industrial growth of the state.
The Railways, he said, should find out strategic areas where new industrial hubs and ports were coming up. He also urged the ministry to include the backward KBK districts in their growth plan.
East Coast Railway (ECoR) General Manager A K Bhora said a vast workforce from Orissa, engaged in various jobs in Surat, was facing a lot of difficulties in the absence of direct train.
They would be now happy to get a direct train to their destination, he said adding about 70 per cent of the seats in the new train had already been booked for Surat.
