Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Better railway facilities sought

VISAKHAPATNAM: Representatives of political parties, former Railway officials and others expressed the need to highlight the demand for better railway facilities at Visakhapatnam and north coastal Andhra, at a discussion organised by the North Andhra Welfare and Development Association (NAWDA) here on Saturday.

Convenor of the NAWDA S. Gopala Sastry explained the injustice being done to the area as far as railway facilities were concerned and reiterated the region’s long-pending demand for creating a separate Railway zone with Visakhapatnam as its headquarters. He also wanted people to demand that the Central Government take up the southern freight corridor project, which would provide a large number of jobs.

A retired General Manager and reputed engineer of the Railways B.V. Rama Rao pointed out that the people of this region were not even aware of the injustice being done to them. Youth of western, northern and eastern States would have huge employment opportunities thanks to the Rs. 26,000 crores western and eastern freight corridors for which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had laid foundation. Andhra Pradesh should take up the demand along with West Bengal, Orissa and Tamil Nadu to have a southern freight corridor, he said.

BJP’s National council member and former MLA K. Haribabu, while explaining how people of north Andhra region had been deprived of many benefits, said people did not react as they should when injustice was meted out to them. A separate Railway zone with Visakhapatnam as headquarters must be created and till then the Waltair Division must be shifted to South Central Railway, Dr. Haribabu said.

Telugu Desam leader and former MLA S.A. Rehaman felt that people must feel in their hearts that they were being deprived of benefits due to them and a demand for better facilities must be sustained. Dr. Rehaman wanted a good and sincere leader to lead the agitation.

CPI (M) city secretary K. Lokanadham said that the local people’s representatives lacked perspective effort and regretted that the concern shown in the case of airport was not witnessed in the case of railway facilities.

His party would support and participate actively in any agitation to achieve railway facilities.

There was a need to launch a major agitation on railway facilities but political will and determination were necessary to achieve the goal, said CPI city secretary Ch. Raghavendra Rao.

He felt that the Congress being the ruling party should lead the all-party agitation and reminded that last year during a discussion organised by the Vizag Journalists Forum, the CPI suggested that MLA and city Congress president Dronamraju Srinivasa Rao should take the lead. But there was no progress so far, said Mr. Raghavendra Rao.

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