The ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Friday urged the central government to allot the revenue generating parts of Waltair division, currently of the East Coast Railway (ECoR), to the newly-created South Coast Railway zone (SCoR) with Vishakhapatnam as its headquarters.
Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday announced that the Indian Railways will create a new zone named SCoR with its headquarters in Vishakhapatanam.
The SCoR zone will comprise of existing divisions -- Guntakal, Guntur and Vijayawada. The Waltair division will be split into two -- one to be incorporated in the new zone by merging with the neighbouring Vijayawada division while the other will be converted into a new division with its headquarter at Rayagada in Odisha.
Taking to its Twitter handle, the TDP alleged that "by giving the revenue-generating parts of Waltair Division to Odisha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again pulled the chain to stop Andhra Pradesh's development."
On Wednesday, the TDP expressed disappointment over the declaration of Vishakhapatnam as the headquarters of the new railway zone in Andhra Pradesh, calling it an "election gimmick".
"Piyush Goyal has announced the special railways' zone for Andhra Pradesh. We have been waiting for the demand for the last five years, in fact, it was there in the AP Reorganisation Act also...We are happy that they have given us the zone but there are still many issues that the minister has to clarify," TDP leader Rammohan Naidu told ANI.
"We have been requesting the whole northern region of Andhra Pradesh to be included under this zone but that has not been clearly specified. It is unclear as to which lines are coming under this. We have said that the line which has been divided between Odisha and Andhra Pradesh should be done on an equal basis so that profit sharing is done equally between both the states. All this is looking like an election gimmick," he added.
While announcing this decision, Goyal stated the new zone is being created as per item 8 of Schedule 13 (Infrastructure) of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 under which the Indian Railways was required to examine establishing a new railway zone in the successor state of Andhra Pradesh.