Cong leaders flay Budget, say factory not viable

BERHAMPUR: Cutting across party lines, leaders have flayed the railway budget. Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Chandra Sekhar Sahu described the budget as ‘disappointing’ and said that Odisha has been deprived of its share.Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi’s announcement for setting up a wagon factory at Sitalapalli here too did not go down well with the Congress leaders. Sahu said it was an old hat.“His predecessor Mamata Banerjee had already announced the project in the last year’s budget and the State Government had accordingly identified around 101 acres of land at Sitalapalli, about 20 km from here,” he said, adding that the proposal was kept in abeyance following a demand  for wagon factory in western Odisha.Another Congress leader Chitaranjan Dash said the wagon factory may not be viable as the land selected for the factory is near the Tata Steel rehabilitation colony.BJP leaders Debananda Mohapatra and Bibhuti Jena were critical of both the UPA and the BJD. They said BJD with its 22 MPs failed to get the State’s share of the budget.Even as the BJD leaders expressed disappointment, they hailed the wagon factory decision.