HYDERABAD: Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw has announced that the Centre has decided to upgrade the wagon overhauling unit at Kazipet to a wagon manufacturing facility by allocating Rs 521 crore in the Union Budget. It would be a multi-purpose facility for locomotive and high-speed rail manufacturing in the near future and an industrial centre in the State.
Addressing the media at the BJP office in Nampally on Saturday, Vaishnaw said that Hyderabad was emerging as a major hub for the development of 6G technology, and the use of railway technology for artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things and the train projection system. To spur the development, he announced that IRISET and IIT Hyderabad were being made the Centres of Excellence to develop these futuristic technologies.
He said that the budget for railways had gone up to Rs 886 crore between 2009-2014 in the erstwhile AP, to Rs 4,418 crore for Telangana alone this year. He said that Rs 29,581 crore worth of railway projects had been sanctioned to Telangana, including Rs 600 crore for MMTS Phase-2 works, Rs 715 crore for the modernisation of the Secunderabad Railway Station. Opining that “Sabka Prayaas” was very important for completing projects, he urged Telangana to cooperate in land acquisition and forest and mining permissions.
Thanking the State government for acquiring 150 acres of the required 160 acres for the Kazipet wagon manufacturing facility, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw requested the government to give 1.5-acre land for connecting the facility with Kazipet Junction. He assured that the Centre would definitely consider if the State sent a proposal for the Airport Express route being laid by the government.
“Telangana government owes dues of Rs 500 crore for railway projects in the last 3-4 years. Without the State government’s support, we have completed the MMTS Phase-2 works and 20 new services will soon be run between Secunderabad and Medchal stations,” Vaishnaw explained.
Survey for Vande Bharat
He disclosed that a survey was conducted for three more routes for operating Vande Bharat Express in the State and that soon more trains were going to be operated here. Reading out the names of 39 railway stations in the State which are being modernised under the ‘Amrit Bharat Stations Scheme,’ Vaishnaw said that the stations were being designed to reflect the local heritage and culture. He said that 24 one station
one product stall in 24 railway stations was running well, selling local products.
In his light-hearted counter to TRS working president KT Rama Rao’s claim on the floor of the Assembly that inflation in India reached 30 per cent, Vaishnaw quipped: “Some people can build castles in the air and mislead the people, but the people of Telangana are intelligent enough to understand the reality, as Telangana society is one of the most enlightened ones in the world.”
Countering KTR’s claim
Vaishnaw also countered the allegation of Rama Rao that the Centre was trying to privatise the Indian Railways. He said that the Narendra Modi government’s record allocation of Rs 2.4 lakh crore for railways in the general Budget left no doubt that there was no move to privatise the railways.
On Rama Rao's accusation that the Centre was not executing railway projects swiftly, Vaishnaw said that in 2014, only 700-800 km was electrified in a year, but presently it increased to 6,000 km per year, and that construction of new tracks, doubling of lines and laying gauges, which was going at a pace of 1,800-1,900 km per year, now jumped to 4,500 km, which would reach 7,000 km by next year.
He said that the first Vande Bharat sleeper train would be ready by January-February 2024, and the first 142 km bullet train pillars have been laid in Gujarat and Maharashtra.