Rourkela, March 5: Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan today inaugurated the 100th aviation fuel service station of the country here, paving way for multi-carrier air service.

Taking a dig at the BJD government, which keeps complaining about the Centre's neglect of the state, Pradhan said there was an increase in central aid to the state in every sector, citing the recent example of allocation in the railway sector.

Pradhan also said all projects, such as the cement plant at Purnapani, the super-specialty Ispat General Hospital, Panposh bridge and others would be over shortly. The minister waded into the Biju birth centenary controversy, saying: "The people of Odisha will decide whether Biju babu is a person or an institution, who belonged to all."

He also spoke of local BJP MLA Dilip Ray's relations with Biju. The minister, however, said it was not just a coincidence that the aviation fuel service station had been inaugurated on the 100th birth anniversary of Biju Pattnaik.

Union tribal welfare minister Jual Oram, who is the Lok Sabha MP from Sundargarh, minister of state for railways Manoj Sinha and MLA Ray also spoke on the occasion.

Later, Sinha inaugurated the project of a third railway link between Rourkela and Jharsuguda at the city's railway station. Inaugurating the 101km third link, Sinha said: "Given the substantial increase in traffic between these two important stations, the third link is an urgent necessity."

He said that more than 73 trains were running on the route in spite of its capacity of 54 trains a day. Besides, he said tripling of the existing double line sections between Khargapur-Bondamunda and Jharsuguda-Champa necessitated the augmentation of the line capacity between Rourkela and Jharsuguda. The project cost would be Rs 968.9 crore and the link will have 12 major bridges, 130 minor bridges, the longest being the Brahmani bridge at Panposh.