This is the news doing in political circles, though officially not yet confirmed. There has been hot debates in recent times regarding center not granting special railway zone with Vishakhapatnam as HQ as mentioned in bifurcation act. But recent news is that AP will get a new railway zone but not with Vizag Head quarters but with Vijayawada HQ.
Although not officially revealed, South Coast Railway (SCoR) could well be the name of the zone to be carved out of taking a division of the East Coastal Railway (ECR) and three out of South Central Railway (SCR) . South Central Railway with its HQ at Secunderabad had its divisions of Guntakal, Vijayawada,Guntur, Secunderabad, Hyderabad and Nanded. Now center is planning to create new zone with taking out Guntakal, Vijayawada, and Guntur, from SCR to carve out the new zone for AP.
Now let’s see what could be implications:
First, as mentioned in previous article (https://www.telugu360.com/ap-need-vizag-railway-zone-benefits-will-people-get/), Vizag is the most revenue generating division in the ECR zone that has its HQ at Bhuvaneswar and BJP is having better base in Odisha with 18% vote bank and 10 out of 147 MLAs in 2014 elections(against 4 MLAs and less than 4% vote bank in AP). So BJP wants to appease Odisha people by continuing Vizag in Bhuvaneswar zone. But by taking out divisions from SCR, definitely there will be objections from Telangana state. So, if this proposal is made official, it is expected to raise fresh row between Telangana and AP. Do you recall the story of 2 cats and a monkey now?
Second, AP needs decentralized development but so far development is focused at Amaravathi capital region. If Vizag railway zone is materialized, it will help Vizag becomea growth center and helps decentralized development in the state. If Vijayawada is made a new zone, again the development will be centralized, spurring regional disparities.
Third, this will be definitely a big disappointment to people of north Andhra region. AP is a complex state with regional disparities, class and caste disparities and some castes dominating some places. If at all this proposal is going to be realized, the governments also have to convince the people with correct reasons. Otherwise there is a possibility that some political leaders can this as advantage and project this as injustice done to some castes.
Of course, this proposal is not a completely new one. More than a year back, similar proposal was made and left parties heavily objected for that and the proposal was dropped at that moment. So, now the same proposal resurfaced after the latest agitations. We will have to wait and see what decision union government is going to take.
-Zuran
