The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Vijayawada News : TDP sets `deadline' for rail track removal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 24, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada

TDP sets `deadline' for rail track removal

By Our Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA, JULY 23. The Telugu Desam Party has threatened to launch an agitation if the South Central Railway does not initiate steps to remove the Satyanarayanapuram railway line before August 15 to facilitate laying of a road before Krishna Pushkarams.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, the former Vijayawada MP, Gadde Rama Mohan, said that the demand for the removal of the S. N. Puram railway line was over three decades old.

The town has a river on the south, a string of hillocks on the west, apart from three canals cutting across it and acting as barriers.

An additional barrier in the form of a railway track was creating problems in the already congested city and its removal was imperative for laying the road and reducing congestion, he said.

Railway laxity alleged

Mr. Rama Mohan said that the then State Government had issued an order in 1996 for the removal of the track.

However, the railway authorities failed to initiate action all these years, he alleged.

Mr. Rama Mohan said the removal of the track was made a priority after he was elected as the Lok Sabha member from Vijayawada in 1999.

The then Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, was brought twice to the city, once exclusively to discuss the feasibility of removing the track. Weekly coordination meetings between the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) and the South Central Railways were convened to resolve the row over the transfer of land, he said.

The former MP said that he had ensured release of Rs. 4 crores for the levelling the land transferred to the railways.

The then Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, sanctioned an additional Rs. 24 crores for laying an alternative line in a phased manner and the railway authorities had prepared a schedule for the removal of the track by 2005.

An alternative line was ready for use but for the establishment of signal linkage and the local railway authorities were stalling the work, he said.

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