BHUBANESWAR: The Centre’s decision to create South Coast Railway (SCoR) by bifurcating the East Coast Railway (ECoR) has come in for strong criticism from ruling BJD which described the move, only months before the upcoming polls, as a conspiracy against Odisha to weaken the State economically.
“The new zone coming days before the announcement of Lok Sabha elections clearly exhibits that it has been done only for political purposes at the cost of development of Odisha and its railways,” BJD spokesperson Sasmit Patra told media persons here.
“People of Odisha will never forgive Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the BJP led Government at the Centre for this conspiracy to satisfy the people of Andhra Pradesh for electoral gains and destroy the Railways in Odisha as people of the State would not vote for them,” he said.
Railways Minister Piyush Goyal announced on Wednesday the zone with its headquarters at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. The new zone was constituted as per item 8 of schedule 13 (Infrastructure) of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.
The new zone will comprise existing Guntakal, Guntur and Vijayawada divisions. It will also include around half of the Waltair Division of East Coast Railway (ECoR). The rest of the Waltair division will become a separate division with its headquarters at Rayagada and will remain under ECoR.
The BJD maintained that the SCoR was not mandatory under the Act as it had only a provision to ‘examine’ establishment of new Railways. The Railways Ministry had constituted a high level committee in 2016 to examine the provision. The committee had unanimously rejected the idea of forming SCoR by taking away jurisdiction from the ECoR. “The report has been hidden from the public for the last three years,” Patra said.
Under the ECoR, the maintenance of all diesel and electric engines and almost all wagons was being undertaken at Visakhatnam, where the Railways has been investing continuously over the last decade and a half. The biggest diesel shed in the country, the largest loco shed in ECoR and wagon maintenance facilities are located at Visakhapatnam.
Patra alleged that now with these facilities taken away from ECoR, the Railways in Odisha will be in a very precarious position as far as supply of engines and wagons are concerned. Besides, large parts of North and West Odisha which provide for major mineral traffic of coal and iron ore to the Railways continues to be under the jurisdiction of Bilaspur (SECR), Chakradharpur (SER) divisions denying the right of the people to be served from within, he said.
Patra asked, “If the BJP led Centre is taking a political decision for Andhra Pradesh, why is it neglecting the rightful demand of Odisha for having the State under the jurisdiction of ECoR. Odisha’s demand, which has been placed before the Centre many times by the Chief Minister, has never been considered. Besides, several sanctioned projects like the Sitapalli wagon factory, Narla wagon factory and maintenance workshop have been conveniently ignored by the Centre, he said.