Bhubaneswar, Sept. 8: The new railway station, which was planned to lessen the burden on the existing facility at Master Canteen, is not going to come up anytime soon as it has already missed its third deadline.

The new railway station between Barang and Mancheswar, about 13km from the existing station, was planned in 2013. Work for the project started in 2014. Initially, East Coast Railway had set a deadline of March 2016 for its completion.

But, the work was nowhere near completion on time and the project got a new deadline of December 2016. This time, too, officials of the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) failed to deliver on time and were given a third deadline of May this year. But the construction is far from complete even four months after the third deadline.

General manger of East Coast Railway Umesh Singh on April 28 chaired a meeting to discuss the status of various ongoing projects of the RVNL. The RVNL was then advised to speed up the project work and make the new station ready for use by end of May this year.

At present, work on construction of three platforms is going on. A senior railway official conceded to The Telegraph that was progressing so slow that it would take at least another four months for the station to be ready for use.

A source in the railway, however, said that the project was not making the desired progress as the RVNL had consistently been showing a lack of interest. 'They are reluctant to do their bit in accordance with the deadline,' the source said.

On the other hand, the official said that three lines were getting readied, while two platforms were on the verge of completion.

He said that work had been divided into two parts. While the first part includes construction of four platforms and five railway lines, the second part covers three more platforms and four other railway lines.

Countering the allegations of lack of interest, a source in the RVNL said that the work was delayed due to amendments in the original plans.

'The first phase of the work is almost complete, while work is going on for laying three lines and construction of two foot-over-bridges. Two lines have already been made operational. Once the third line work gets completed, we will inaugurate the station. The delay has happened due to certain amendments in the original plan,' a RVNL official said.

Railway insiders said initially the plan was to allow stoppage of passenger trains once the three lines were laid. This would have been followed by stoppages for fast passenger and the express trains.

'People will take time to know about the station. It will not be ideal to throw open a full-fledged facility all of a sudden,' the official said.

Once completed, the new station, which is also being called the satellite station, will cater to the need of passengers boarding southbound trains. People from Patia, Kalarahanga, Chandrasekharpur, Niladri Vihar, Sailashree Vihar, Infocity, Raghunathpur, Barang, Nandankanan and Mancheswar will be able to use this facility.

The final plan is to shift the departure of all southbound trains from the Bhubaneswar New railway station, which will have nine lines and seven platforms.

This will be higher than the capacity of the city's main railway station.

'Despite being the capital city of the state, Bhubaneswar does not have a proper railway station. The existing station is very small with few platforms and inadequate railway lines compared to other major capitals in India. It gives a very bad impression to visitors to the temple city,' said Narayan Majhi, a resident of Unit III.