Railway projects facing land acquisition problems in Bihar

Patna, Sept 12 (UNI) Several important Railway projects in Bihar were being delayed for long following land acquision problems in in some of the districts.

East Central Railway (ECR) sources here today said Chairman Railway Board (CRB) K C Jena made the observation during an important review meeting of the Railway Board to discuss the progress of the projects here yesterday.

The meeting was also attended by Railway Finance Commissioner Sudha Chowbey and other senior officials of the East Central Railway (ECR).

Highlighting the details of the meeting, ECR sources said the CRB had expressed serious concern at the undue delay of the projects in the state worth more than Rs 10,000 crores because of land aquisition problems in Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi, Chapra and Motrihari districts.

Stressing the need to complete all the pending projects within the respective stipulated periods, Mr Jena directed the Railway officials to immediately take up the issue with the concerned authorities in the state and sort out the problems at the earliest.

Incidentally, the problem of land acquisition for laying of railway lines between Muzaffarpur and Chapra, Darbhanga and Kusheswarthan and Bikraul and Sakri.

Besides, the launch of some other important projects, including the building of a wagon manufacturing plant at Sonepur at a cost of nearly Rs 100 crores, were causing serious problems to the Railways for the past several months and needed to be addressed on top priority basis.

Regarding the problems of getting speedy approvals from the forest officials for laying of new lines between Tilaya and Koderma, which had resulted in almost stalling of the project, the CRB announced his decision to set up a special cell to deal with the situation and complete it by next year, as scheduled.

Moreover, the sources said, the Railway Board had also decided to complete the Rs 36 crore super-speciality 150-bedded Railway hospital at Patna junction within the next 16 months to meet the long standing demand for the families of the railway employees here.

The progress of a number of other ongoing railway projects in the state, including the construction of several overbridges and subways, were also reviewed by the CRB and directed the officials to complete all the work on time to the satisfaction of Railway minister Lalu Prasad.

Later, accompanied by senior officials Mr Jena and Ms Chowbey visited a number of ongoing railway projects in and around Patna.

UNI