Cuttack, Aug. 20: The East Coast Railway said the city lacked requirements for developing a terminal.

Clearing all doubts whether more trains could be routed through Cuttack railway station and a terminal could be set up here instead of Bhubaneswar, the railway said it had no such plan to pass any of the 19 trains through the station.

Advocate Gadadhar Sahoo of a city-based legal advocacy organisation had filed a PIL, seeking the court’s intervention in routing at least nine trains through Cuttack railway station. They are Puri-Ahmedabad Express, Puri-Ajmere Express, Puri-Siridi Sai Nagar Express, Visakha-Amritsar Hirakud Express, Howrah Kanyakumari Express, Bhubaneswar-Bolangir Express, Bhubaneswar-Rourkela Intercity, Puri-Sambalpur Express and Bhubaneswar-Keonjhargarh Fast Passenger.

In its affidavit, the railway’s chief passenger transport manager Dipak Kumar Jha said: “Adequate land is not available to develop a terminal in Cuttack. Doubling of tracks between Cuttack and Barang stations is also necessary. In the absence of both, it is not possible to develop a terminal here. At present, 19 pairs of express and four pairs of passenger trains run via Naraj Marthapur station due to capacity constrains.”

The rail link between Cuttack and Barang stations is a single-line track and the trains passing through Cuttack are supposed to pass through the tracks, which, at present, have “151 per cent capacity utilisation”.

“So at this juncture it is not possible to route trains through Cuttack station,” Jha said.

According to the affidavit, the doubling work of railway tracks is in progress and expected to be over within a short span of time. Once it is done, some trains may be diverted via Cuttack depending upon the capacity.

Jha, in his affidavit, said nine pairs of trains did not halt in Cuttack. Of them, six pairs were express — New Jalapaiguri-Chennai, Howrah — Sri Sai Express, Howrah-Jasawantpur Express, Bhubaneswar — New Delhi, Prasanti-Nilaya Express and Howrah-Puduchari Sialda-Puri Express.

“Out of the above trains, three pairs are Duranta, which run end to end without any commercial stoppage en route. The remaining pairs don’t stop in Cuttack,” Jha said in his affidavit.

Taking note of the affidavit, the division bench of Chief Justice Amitava Roy and Justice B.R. Sarangi posted the matter for hearing after one week along with the rejoinder from the petitioner. The court directed petitioner counsel Ramanath Acharya to file the rejoinder within one week.