BALURGHAT: Blame it on Centre's negligence and lackadaisical attitude, the Balurghat-Hili railway project is yet to be completed even after being inaugurated in 2011. The project was inaugurated by the then Union Railway minister Mamata Banerjee in 2011.
Fund of Rs 100 crore was allocated in the 2011 rail budget to build concrete pillars on Atreyee and Yamuna rivers. The Railway department had started identifying land for the much-needed rail project in South Dinajpur.
In 2016, a fund of Rs 200 crore was allocated by the Centre to keep the project on. In 2017, the fund was increased to Rs 400 crore to expedite the project. Surprisingly, after 2017 the Central government had apparently lost interest in the project. The Centre allocated meager amounts for the project. Seeing the slow and sluggish development of the project, Arpita Ghosh, the then Balurghat Lok Sabha MP of Trinamool Congress (TMC), had raised the issue in Parliament and demanded Centre's intervention to complete the project. The project, however, didn't pick up pace despite the demand of Ghosh.
Moreover, the Centre had blamed the state government and the local administration for not acquiring land for the project. Rubbishing the charges, an official source said the local administration had successfully completed the preliminary process of land acquisition.
South Dinajpur TMC co-ordinator Subhas Chaki said: "Balurghat-Hili rail project has been ignored intentionally by the BJP government. The project was inaugurated by our leader Mamata Banerjee. The project is not in the priority list of the BJP government to complete it in due time as it was announced by our beloved leader." According to him, the local administration has already completed the preliminary process of land acquisition. He blamed BJP's Balurghat MP Dr Sukanta Majumdar for doing nothing for the incomplete Balurghat-Hili project. A local Hili-based Railway development forum 'Hili Simanta Unnayan Mancha' has also demanded the immediate completion of the project.