Title - Railway Board bypasses Kotla’s promise

Fails to re-route diverted trains through Visakhapatnam

More than six months after Union Minister of State for Railways Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy’s announcement of re-routing of diverted trains through Visakhapatnam, the Railways seem to be averse to the decision. No provision has been made in the new Railway Time Table, to be issued on July 1, on re-routing of the diverted trains through Visakhapatnam. Mr. Suryaprakash Reddy had declared at a public function in the city in December last year that the trains being diverted via Duvvada would be re-routed through Visakhapatnam. He also agreed to provide a... halt to Garib Rath at Duvvada and said he was with the people of the region in their struggle for a separate railway zone with Visakhapatnam as headquarters to end the injustice to Waltair Division.“This indicates that the Railway Minister’s announcement has been bypassed by the Railway Board. It shows the ‘pull’ that the powers that be in Odisha have at the Board level and also the ‘commitment’ of our MPs in pursuing the demands of the people at the Board-level,” said Praja Spandana president C.S. Rao.“Waltair Division with an annual revenue of over Rs.5,000 crore earns more than the revenue of the other two Divisions of ECoR – Khurda and Sambalpur – put together. The ‘breadwinner’ of the zone is neglected while the other two Divisions, which are in Odisha, gets sops like development of over 550 km new tracks, new projects, new trains, increased reservation quotas and even new bogies,” a former railway employee said. “ECoR has been formed for the development of Odisha but not Andhra. It can be called ‘Odisha zone’ but not ‘ECoR Zone’. A new zone with Visakhapatnam as headquarters can be created and named as South East Coast Railway Zone. The new zone can be formed with Vijayawada, Guntur and Waltair Divisions,” feels R. Rama Rao, advisor to the Uttarandhra Rakshana Vedika (URV).

“A new Division can also be formed at Rajahmundry and there would be no objections as all these places are located in AP. Of late, the Zones have been created State-wise and some of the States have two zones and AP also deserves two zones,” he said.

It’s high time the Chief Minister took up the issue with the Prime Minister and the Railway Minister and ends the decade-old problem once and for all.