Naveen leaves for Delhi on 6-day visit

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik left for Dehli on Thursday on a six-day visit. He is scheduled to meet Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi and hold discussions on railway projects in the State. The State has been complaining that it is getting raw deal despite huge revenue earning by the Railways.    Demanding a package for the State in the forthcoming Railway Budget, the Chief Minister in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month said the State deserves a sizeable part of the revenue generated by the Railways from the State towards infrastructure development. In two separate letters to the Prime Minister and Dinesh Trivedi, the Chief Minister said that while the gross revenue earning of the Indian Railways from the State was over Rs 7,500 crore, the budgetary support to the State from the Centre is negligible. An Assembly committee headed by Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat met the Railway Minister in Delhi last month demanding an allocation of Rs 2,345 crore for Odisha in the Union Budget.  The Minister had assured the delegation that he would visit Odisha with a high level official team to discuss with the Chief Minister before finalising the 2012-13 Railway Budget. However, the Chief Minister preferred to meet the Union Minister before the finalisation of he Railway budget. The State Government had last year demanded Rs 2,085 crore and received only Rs 1,168 crore, which was inadequate to meet the requirement. Apart from budget inadequacy, many of the projects were languishing due to slow pace of land acquisition. The Chief Minister is likely to meet Union Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Kumari Selja and request her for more financial support for taking up  housing projects for the urban poor. He is scheduled to be back on January 17.