ECoR officials skip house panel meeting

Officials of East Coast Railways (ECoR) today skipped the meeting of the Odisha assembly committee on Railways. While the meeting was attended by the speaker Niranjan Pujari and Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra, the absence of Railway officers at the key meeting was conspicuous.

In a recent letter to the General Manger, ECoR, the additional chief secretary, revenue and disaster management Taradatt blamed the Railways  for delay in acquiring lands for  some important projects like Angul-Sukinda line, Haridaspur-Paradip line, Talcher-Bimalagad, Khurda Road-Bolangir line, doubling of Sambalpur-Titlagarh route.

On the absence of ECoR officials at the meeting, a senior Railways official said, “There is a standing instruction of the Attorney General that central government officials will not attend any assembly committee meeting.

This has already been intimated by the Railway Board to the state government, on the basis of which the ECoR officials were not invited to the meeting.”

Senior ECoR officials are regularly interacting with the top brass of the state administration. So, they have no qualms in attending the house panel meeting if it is permitted under the rules, the official said.