South Central Railway (SCR) General Manager P.K. Srivastava inspected the city railway station on Friday along with Chief Security Commissioner R. Pacharwal and Divisional Railway Manager Pradeep Kumar and Additional DRM N. Seetharam Prasad and other heads of departments.
The GM’s visit, the second one in just two weeks (the last one on May 22), heightened the speculation that Vijayawada was going to be made the headquarters of the proposed South Coastal Railway Zone comprising Vijayawada, Guntur and Guntakal divisions under the SCR and Waltair division of the East Coast Railway.
However, Mr. Srivastava maintained that the expert committee constituted by the Railway Board remained seized of the matter and it would submit its report soon.
Routine exerciseSpeaking to the media, Mr. Srivastava said it was a routine exercise to out ways of improving passenger amenities and overall performance of the division.
He asserted that his visit had nothing to do with the swearing-in of Chief Minister-designate N. Chandrababu Naidu.
Passenger safetyThe GM inspected the facilities on platforms 1, 5 and 6 after holding a review meeting with Mr. Pacharwal, DRM and ADRM inside the special train in which he came from Hyderabad.
He instructed the officials to ensure timely running of the summer special trains and safety of passengers as the top priorities.