URKC protests altered coastal highway alignment

A delegation of the Upakula Rajpath Kriyanustahn Committee (URKC), a Balikuda-based civic body, on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to Governor Prof Ganeshi Lal against the new alignment of proposed coastal highway excluding their region from the project’s ambit.

The URKC states that the project had originally been designed in 2015 to touch the Balikuda region in Jagatsinghpur district and then connect with Paradip. But in the modified plan, the villages in Balikuda block have been excluded as the highway would pass through Naugaon block and then proceed to Paradip through Erasama block.

As the project aims to be an economic hallway for agricultural and pisciculture products transported to seaside villages,