The Telugu Desam and the BJP governments have to correct the mistake of merging Waltair Division in East Coast Railway, done during their previous regime, and make Visakhapatnam headquarters of the new railway zone in Andhra Pradesh.
This is the broad consensus among people and various organisations, which have been spearheading the cause of creation of a new railway zone with headquarters in Visakhapatnam for over a decade now.
People’s representatives from north Andhra region are being confronted by people, retired railway employees and trade union leaders on the issue at almost every public meeting, which indicates the strong sentiment among people of the region.
The East Coast Railway (ECoR) was formed in 2003 and the Waltair Division was merged with it ignoring protests from local people, who wanted creation of a new zone or at least merger in the South Central Railway (SCR).
“The Telugu Desam, which was in power at that time, did not to oppose the move though TDP Parliamentary Party Leader K. Yerran Naidu, who hailed from Srikakulam, was chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways,” recalls a retired railway employee. Though Visakhapatnam MP K. Haribabu, Visakhapatnam North-MLA P. Vishnu Kumar Raju, BJP leader M. Nagendra and leaders of all other parties are favouring the railway zone headquarters in Vizag, the TDP leaders are unable to make a statement as there is no clarity on it from the party high command.
The silence of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on the long-pending demand to make Vizag headquarters of the new zone while his Odisha counterpart made an open statement that Odisha would not let go the high-revenue generating Waltair Division from ECoR has fuelled speculation that the TD president was in favour of having the zone headquarters in Vijayawada.
The zone-seekers hope that BJP state president and Vizag MP K. Haribabu would persuade the Chief Minister to have the zone HQ here as part of decentralised development.
