Bhubaneswar, Oct. 27: The House Committee of the Orissa Assembly on railways, headed by the Speaker, will urge the Centre for adequate allocation of funds for expansion of railways in the state.

Orissa badly needs expansion of the railway network to meet the demands posed by growing industrialisation.

The House Committee, chaired by Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat, has decided to meet the Prime Minister and railway minister to put pressure on the Centre for adequate allocation of funds.

“The committee has decided to meet the Prime Minister and railway minister at the earliest. As soon as we get the appointment, we will go to Delhi and meet them,” Amat told The Telegraph.

He said the state commerce and transport department was asked to prepare a detailed memorandum within a week to be presented to the Prime Minister and the railway minister.

House committee members alleged that though the general manager of East Coast Railways had been invited to the meeting, he did not attend it. The other officers who attended the meeting failed to provide satisfactory information on the progress of ongoing projects.

In the last railway budget, an allocation of Rs 1,168.02 crore had been made for Orissa as against its demand of Rs 2,085 crore for early completion of ongoing projects.

The major ongoing railway projects include Khurda Road-Balangir (289km), Haridaspur-Pardip (82km), Lanjigarh Road-Junagarh (56km), Angul-Duburi-Sukinda Road (90km) and Talcher-Bimlagarh (154km).

In the last railway budget, no new rail lines were sanctioned for the state. Against the state’s demand for the introduction of 16 new express trains, only six were announced.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his regional outfit BJD have been alleging that the Centre has neglected the much-needed expansion of railway network of a backward state like Orissa.

A few months ago, the ruling BJD had held a massive youth rally in Cuttack and highlighted “Central apathy”.

Congress members, on the other hand, blamed the BJD government in Orissa for the poor expenditure in ongoing rail projects because of tardy progress in land acquisition. “The state government has failed to provide required land,” alleged leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh.

Official sources said the state government and the Assembly panel were likely to demand a provision of more than Rs 2,000 crore for the state in the 2012-13 railway budget to complete all major and long-pending railway projects.

The state may also demand adequate allocation for early completion of rail projects in the Maoist-affected region, added these sources.

The state government has been demanding the expansion of railway network and improvement of railway services in the Maoist-affected areas. Last year, it had requested the ministry of railways to treat these projects as “national projects”.

It is not only the BJD which has been agitating over the neglect of railways in the state, the cause has also been taken up by the other parties such as the BJP and the Nationalist Congress Party. However, instead of coming on a common platform to highlight these issues, they have been trying to pressurise the Centre separately.