Now, focus shifts to IRTTC meet

List of trains to be included in Railway Budget to be finalised. Anakapalle MP Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao and Araku MP Kothapalli Geetha said that they would take up the issues with the authorities concerned when the matter was brought to their notice on Tuesday.

The meeting of Indian Railway Time Table Committee (IRTTC), scheduled to be held in Allahabad from January 6 to 8, will finalise the list of trains to be included in the Railway Budget for 2015-16. Trains are sought from the city to Bengaluru, Chennai, Tirupati, and Allahabad via Varanasi, and have been pending for a long time.

It is high time MPs from the region (Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts which fall under the jurisdiction of Waltair Division) send their proposals, based on the demands of the public, and thereby do justice to the region.

Diversion of eight important trains via Duvvada to Visakhapatnam, while two of them are not even provided a halt at Duvvada, skipping the A-1 grade to the Visakhapatnam Railway Station, inconvenient schedules for some originating and terminating trains and lack of an originating train to Bengaluru in spite of the tremendous demand for berths are some of the other pending issues of vital importance.

“There is no truth in the claims of the railway officials that running time is being saved by the through trains by diverting them via Duvvada, skipping Visakhapatnam station. On the contrary, much higher expenditure is being made by re-deploying the existing staff to other stations and providing much higher halt timings at lower grade stations, which are ill-equipped to take up cleaning and catering facilities,” says an RTI activist Bhaskar.

“Loco-pilots and other coaching staff are also facing a lot of problems due to non-provision of rest room facilities and in commuting from Visakhapatnam. There is every need to bring back all the diverted trains to avoid unnecessary expenditure and provide better platform facilities to passengers at Visakhapatnam Railway Station,” he says.

“A slight change in the timings of the through trains will enable re-routing of the diverted trains, through Visakhapatnam. But year on year this is being denied at the zonal level without proper justification,” he adds.

Anakapalle MP Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao and Araku MP Kothapalli Geetha said that they would take up the issues with the authorities concerned when the matter was brought to their notice on Tuesday.

New train sought

Ms. Geetha said that she had already sought a second tourist train to Araku in view of the tremendous demand from passengers, pending introduction of the ‘Vista Dome’ (see through coaches).

One can only hope that our MPs will provide reason enough for the people of Vizag to cheer about in the New Year.