Prabhu accepts Odisha railway proposal within 3 minutes

BHUBANESWAR: Railway minister Suresh Prabhu has accepted a proposal for a new railway line in Odisha within three minutes of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik offering on Twitter to share half of the project cost.

Patnaik proposed the new line between Puri and Konark on the microblogging site at 10.05 PM last night and it was responded positively at 10.08 PM by Prabhu.

"CM@Naveen_Odisha proposes state sharing 50 per cent of project cost for new rail line from Puri to Konark to boost tourism potential in #Odisha," the CMO Odisha said.

"CM @Naveen_Odisha urged upon Union Min @sureshpprabhu for early sanction of this project & signing an MoU for timely completion," the CM's tweet said.

Prabhu immediately tweeted back saying: "We are ready to sign it any day, we are waiting for it, as it was our initiative to share ownership with states of these JVs."

Patnaik also said that with state's contribution, the rate of return would be more than 20 per cent for the railways.