I had heard that initially there was some plan like that ( following Tata VSKP route via Chaibasa). But couple of reasons given were (1) Train is part of CKP Division and CKP as a station might lose a connectvity to South. It was more of a pressure from Divisional HQ. (2) Moreover from CTC onwards it will follow the regular HwH-TVC route where already so many trains are running towards AP/TN/KL. ECOR was more inclined to run it via existing route (ROU-SBP-TIG-VSKP) & It was felt that there was enough scope to run one more train via Western Orissa