Representatives of The Andhra Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) on Tuesday termed the Railway budget (2012-13) a big disappointment.
In a statement, Chamber president Muthavarapu Murali Krishna and secretary Chukkapalli Ramakrishna Prasad said that the Minister of State for Railways, K. Suryaprakash Reddy, being from Andhra Pradesh, the State had pinned high hopes on the budget.
There was no proposal for new coaches or any improvement in seating nor was there any mention of the long-pending demand for new trains. They said that the people of the State had been looking forward to the introduction of a night passenger train between Vijayawada and Secunderabad, an inter-city service to Tirupati and a new inter-city train between Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam, which had been ignored in the budget.
On long-distance trains, the long-awaited service to Nagpur and Karimnagar-Tirupati and Secunderabad-Jaipur trains will have to wait at least till the next budget, they lamented.
The budget is also silent on the need to declare Vijayawada Junction as A-1 station, considering that it is the central halt point for hundreds of trains criss-crossing the region, and other facilities such as escalators, lift system, additional platforms and a satellite station. They said though Kurnool had been granted a wagon workshop, the ever-bustling Vijayawada Junction had been given a raw deal.
