The Struggle Committee for Achieving Railway Zone, an all-party body, at its meeting here on Saturday decided to launch a direct action on July 19, one of its members and secretary of the CPI district committee J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy said.
The agitation for creating a separate railway zone was being intensified as the officials concerned continued to be indifferent towards providing more amenities to the travellers of this area and one example was continuing to run some trains via Duvvada in spite of two additional platforms constructed at a cost of several crores of rupees having been commissioned at the Visakhapatnam railway station, the meeting felt.
Before launching the direct action, awareness programmes would be conducted in the city and one lakh pamphlets would be distributed to the people.
Padayatras would be organised on July 15, from Jagadamba junction to RTC complex; from NAD Junction to Gopalapatnam on July 16 and from old Gajuwaka to new Gajuwaka on July 17.
On June 30 a memorandum was submitted to the General Manager of East Coast Railway through the Divisional Railway Manger of Waltair, seeking response on the railway zone within 15 days.
Since there was no response from the officials concerned, the struggle committee decided to launch the direction action.
The meeting was attended by Mr. Murthy, Chalasani Raghavendra Rao, A.J. Stalin and M. Pydiraju of CPI; Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar of the Telugu Desam; Palla Srinivas of the Praja Rajyam and J. Prudhviraj, Biharilal and Satyanarayana of BJP.
