Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu are hatching a conspiracy to ‘deprive’ Visakhapatnam the headquarters of the proposed new railway zone in Andhra Pradesh, alleged the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) city treasurer S. Jyothiswara Rao, All India Women’s Association (AIDWA) city secretary R.N. Madhavi and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) city secretary V. Krishna Rao.
At a media conference here on Tuesday, they alleged that while on one hand a resolution was adopted in the AP Assembly to set up the railway zone headquarters in Visakhapatnam, on the other attempts were being made to deprive it of that status. A peoples’ ballot would be conducted soon to elicit the opinion of the people in this regard.
The idea was to collect the views of about 1 lakh people including workers by approaching them at their workplace.
They said the Chandrababu Naidu government would have to pay a heavy price in the forthcoming elections to the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), if Visakhapatnam was denied the headquarters of the new railway zone.
There were many reasons which make Visakhapatnam, the most deserving case to be made the headquarters of the new zone. These include: Waltair Division (Visakhapatnam), with an annual revenue of Rs.7,000 crore, is the fourth highest revenue earning divisions in the country, it has 1,052 km of railway lines, availabilty of 782 acres of vacant railway land and the required basic infrastructure and is the only city in AP having many heavy industries like Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, HPCL, Hindustan Shipyard, Naval Dockyard and Visakhapatnam Port.
Locating the headquarters of the new railway zone here would benefit the people of North Andhra as a number of jobs would be created. The improvement of rail network would contribute to the growth of industries besides improvement of passenger amenities like introduction of new trains and increase in the quota of berths on trains.
They called upon the workers, employees and others to participate in the referendum and express their views on the demand for establishment of the railway zone headquarters in Visakhapatnam through the ballot.
