The intense debate over which city is best suited to be capital of Andhra Pradesh should invariably draw one’s attention to Vijayawada’s potential to be developed into a ‘logistics hub’ in the event of some other place being chosen to be the new capital.
The well-established network of roads, railways and airport at Gannavaram are considered distinct advantages for Vijayawada to be developed on a par with other major Indian cities. Besides this, the Machilipatnam port is just about 60 km away and development of National Waterway-4 connecting Kakinada and Puducherry in which the Vijayawada stretches of river Krishna and Buckingham canal form a crucial link, gives the city greater importance.
It is a know fact that National Highways 16 (Chennai-Kolkata), 65 (Pune-Machilipatnam) pass through the city and NH-214 that links Pamarru to Katthipudi in East Godavari district is just 40 km away. The city has been a major junction for lorry operations for several decades with thousands of vehicles carrying goods through the length and breadth of the country everyday.
Coming to railways, Vijayawada station is the largest junction in South India with over 300 express, passenger and freight trains passing through it every day. It has a very bright chance of being made headquarters of the proposed South Coastal Railway Zone located as it is on Chennai-Howrah and Chennai-Delhi lines. The expansion of Gannavaram airport at an estimated cost of Rs. 200 crore is bound to give a fillip to growth of not only the city but the entire south coastal A.P.
The destinations served by this mid-sized airport are Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi and some private airline companies have plans to operate flights to more Indian cities. The picture is thus complete with the city having all the modes of surface transport readily available for future expansion .
