Odisha to construct truck terminals at 15 sites along NHs soon
BHUBANESWAR: After a long wait, the state government has finally decided to construct 15 truck terminals at a cost of Rs 150 crore along highways to reduce accidents. The truck terminals will come up at 15 locations including Angul, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Cuttack, Khurda, Ganjam, Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Sambalpur and Nabarangpur in the first phase during the current financial year. While the terminal at Balasore will be built by the district administration through Engineering Projects (India) Limited (EPIL), it has been decided that Odisha State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation (OPHWC) will construct the terminals at the remaining locations.
The districts have already identified a minimum of 10 acre land along national and state highways for the terminals, which will have amenities and services like restrooms, dhabas, storage facilities, weighing bridges, loading and unloading areas, repair workshop, vehicle servicing facility, petrol pump and toilets. A Transport department official said the Finance department has already released around 67 per cent of the budgeted amount of `150 crore and the rest will be released after submission of the utilisation certificate by the end of December.
“The implementing agencies EPIL and OPHWC have been instructed to invest the fund in a modular or phased manner so that the infrastructure will be ready with development of land, construction of boundary wall and truck bays by end of the financial year so that trucks can be parked in these places,” he said. Meanwhile, the Commerce and Transport department has asked the Transport commissioner to constitute a committee to regularly monitor the projects regularly including the projects to be constructed by the collectors. A third-party supervision will also be conducted to ensure the quality and timely execution of the projects.
The state saw around 17 per cent jump in road accidents in the first quarter of this year. The number of accidents went up from 2,895 to 3,370 and casualties rose from 1,359 to 1,594 during the January-March period. Fatality rate in the three-month period was around 47 per cent.
