Vizianagaram: CPI flays Centre over privatisation of railways

Vizianagaram: The CPI activists have strongly opposed the decision taken by the Central government to run private train services in some select routes.

They flayed the government for selling public properties to private institutions. On Saturday, B Ashok, assistant secretary of Vizianagaram district unit of CPI, along with other party workers staged a dharna at the railway station here and blamed the Union government for working in favour of private business houses.

"The Union government has been neglecting the railways for the past few decades and finally now they are trying to privatise some of the routes and trains. If railways are privatised, women, senior citizens and students would be losers and they won't get any concessions on tickets or other privileges and the ticket fares would be increased," they said.

They also expressed concern stating that thousands of employees would be sacked by the private managements. The government should protect the interests of common people but not the corporate houses, the CPI activists demanded.

Already the maintenance works at some of the big stations like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Howrah have been allotted to private parties and gradually the entire railway department would be brought under private managements, which is a threat to the nation, they feared.

Party activists T Jeevan, K Suneel and others participated in the protest.