TELANGANA (Metro Rail News): Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw expressed his disappointment on 5th February about the Telangana Government’s lack of cooperation in the fast-tracking of railway projects, despite multiple letters and follow-up attempts from the Centre.
While speaking to the media, Vaishnaw pointed out that the Central Government was doing all that was required. Still, the state government must also take the initiative to ensure land acquisition and provide their share to accelerate the projects.
Elaborating further, he mentioned that as part of the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act, the Centre had initiated a tender for the construction of a Railway Wagon manufacturing unit in Kazipet in January which was dependent on the state government allocating 160 acres of land. Although the state had only provided 150 acres, the Centre was still pressing forward with the project so production could begin in the next four to five years.
He declared that Telangana received an unprecedented amount of Rs 4,418 crore in the railway budget, much higher than the Rs 850 crore given to the combined Andhra Pradesh in 2009-14.
Despite this, he lamented that the state government had little support and cooperation and seemed to prioritize politics over infrastructural development. He added that if the state government could provide their share and precise land acquisition and permissions, the allocation could be further increased.
He then informed that the Amrith Bharat Scheme (ABS) would involve the modernization of many railway stations in Telangana, Secundrabad station being redeveloped with Rs 715 crore. Apart from this, the minister revealed that feasibility studies had been conducted to introduce Vade Bharat trains from Telangana on various routes.
He firmly denied the Centre’s intentions of privatizing the railway and said IT Minister KT Ramarao should be aware of the facts. He continued by saying that the emergence of Hyderabad as an IT hub, a hub for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and other high technologies, led to the decision to start two centres of excellence in the city for 6G technologies and railway technology related to IoT, AI and ML, at IIT, Hyderabad and IRISAT, respectively with Central funds.
Lastly, he spoke of the plans to test and introduce world-class Vande Metro trains between cities within a 40 km to 100 km distance and said that it would take 12 to 16 months to develop a prototype and then test it for a year.
