No rail zone, but Prabhu fulfils AP wish list

Save for a separate railway zone, Andhra Pradesh has been sanctioned a slew of projects including the much-needed line connecting Amaravati capital city, and allocated money for ongoing projects,

The railway Budget has sanctioned a survey for the 67-km line between Vijayawada and Guntur via Amaravati. Railway ministry Suresh Prabhu also sanctioned a survey for a rail line from laying line Chittoor to Kuppam, the Assembly segment represented by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The rail zone apart, the Centre has considered most of the requests made by Mr Naidu. The Budget sanctioned the doubling of the 443-km track between Guntur, Guntakal and Dharmavaram at an estimated cost of `4,000 crore. The AP government had agreed to pay 50 per cent of the cost and asked the Railway Board to fast-track project.

The doubling of the line will bring down the travel time between teh AP capital and Rayalaseema from 9 hours to less than five. AP has also requested the Railways to consider introducing non-stop trains between the Amaravati and Rayalaseema.

Other projects sanctioned for AP for augmentation of the MEMU rake maintenance facility at Rajahmundry at a cost of `7.2 crore, and development of the Tiruchanur railway station (conversion of C class to B class station) to decongest Tirupati railway station at a cost of `10 crore. Also, the Tirupati station would be mod- ernised into a world class station.

AP has also got the East Coast dedicated freight corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada, which would get innovative financing including PPP.

Centre has sanctioned `180 crore forth eN adi ku diSrikalahasthi project.