Railway minister proposes to ink MoU with Odisha govt for construction of city station

BHUBANESWAR: Railway minister Piyush Goyal has written a letter to chief minster Naveen Patnaik for signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Railways and the state government for the construction of Bhubaneswar railway station.
He mentioned in the letter that the MoU will be signed jointly at the Rail Bhawan in New Delhi on May 23. He has invited the chief minister to grace the occasion with his officials.
Goyal said in the letter that the station building will be constructed in partnership with the state government.For this, the understanding will be signed between the two government bodies.
In January, both the state government and East Coast Railway (ECoR) had decided to sign the MoU to start the work of construction of multi modal hub and work of new station building at the railway station. But it could not be materialized.
The multi-modal hub will be a part of the Smart City project executed by the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA). It is not clear whether the housing and urban development (H and UD) will go to sign the MoU or not. When contacted, H and UD secretary G Mathivathanan did not respond to TOI’s repeated phone calls.
The state government has agreed to construct a new station building entirely at its cost at the station. It has made a budgetary provision of Rs 60 crore for construction of this project. After construction, two rail lines and one platform will be constructed by the Railway at a cost of Rs 70 crore.
The Railways has started constructing third foot over bridge (six meter wide) at the railway station with an expenditure of Rs 8 crore. The station will have a multi storey building and it will be used by both the parties.