YSRCP MPs demand start of new railway zone

New Delhi: A delegation of YSRCP MPs met minister for railways Ashwini Vaishnav on Thursday and brought to his notice the pending demands of Andhra Pradesh.

Reiterating that as promised during the bifurcation of the state, the South Coast Railway Zone (SCoR) while retaining the Waltair division with it must be implemented at the earliest, the MPs led by V Vijayasai Reddy said the promised zone should become operationalised without further delay.

The new zone would also cater to the nearby ports like Visakhapatnam and Gangavaram, etc., he said while drawing the attention of the minister to the need of a container manufacturing unit for AP as it had 170 million tonne cargo turnover, second only to Gujarat in the country.

In addition, 5 more vistadome coaches should be provided for the Araku-Visakhapatnam route which was a prime tourist destination. To yet another question on the Ekalavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS), Union minister of state for tribal affairs, Renuka Singh Saruta, stated that her ministry had sanctioned 28 EMRSs for the state of Andhra Pradesh out of which 11 EMRSs were for Visakhapatnam district and 6 for East Godavari district.

Vijayaai Redddy was informed by the minister for women and child development, Smriti Irani, that 14 One Stop Centres had been approved for 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh, out of which 13 OSCs were functional. For Chittoor district, two OSCs have been approved, out of which one was not functional.

She said the OSCs were set up with the objective of providing a range of integrated services under one roof, including police facilitation, medical aid, legal aid and legal counselling, psycho-social counselling and temporary shelter to women affected by violence or distress. Physical targets could not be set with regard to cases of violence or crimes against women, she added.