MyVoice: Views of our readers 9th July 2022

Save Kazipet!

Kazipet railway station is a crucial railway junction connecting northern and southern India. But now this railway station is slowly losing its sheen because railway administration has decided to shift all crews (loco pilots, asst. loco pilots and guards) to shift their headquarters from Kazipet to Secunderabad and mostly to Vijayawada. The decision of railway administration has not gone well and loco pilots, asst. loco pilots and guards are heavily agitating for shifting them from Kazipet.

They launched massive dharna along with family members and now they are agitating by launching relay hunger strikes but administration is ignoring them and turning Nelson's eye. Also, the local people's long demand to change Kazipet as a division is also being ignored by authorities.

As minister for railways Mamata Banerjee sanctioned wagon factory at Kazipet as (PPP) mode besides allocating Rs 15 crore in the railway budget 2010-11. Later the Indian Railways sanctioned a periodic overhauling POH unit at Kazipet on 2016 at an estimated cost of Rs 480 crore. This project too has not taken over issues concerning land allotment.

Had Railway coach factory, periodic overhauling unit at Kazipet been constructed and Kazipet would have turned into division, it would have made a lot of difference for Indian Railways and it would have emerged as an important railway station. Due to political reasons RCF (Railway Coach Factory) was shifted to Kapurthala, Punjab in P.V. Narasimha Rao's regime, though he's known as Telangana Bidda, he shifted RCF factory from Kazipet to Kapurthala in Punjab.

Now it is learnt that to appease people of Gujarat ahead of assembly elections, the BJP government is going to cancel the total proposal of RCF in Kazipet and going to consider the same at Dahod in Gujarat. The dream of the people having RCF at Kazipet being converted into division and construction of POH and now shifting of all crews from kazipet to Vijayawada is nothing but belittling Telangana.

Zeeshan, Kazipet

Restore NEET percentile

We are all aware that years 2020 and 2021 were catastrophic in every field world over due to pandemic and medical education was no exception. The need for doctors and other allied personnel was also felt acutely during this period. At that time, we also suddenly felt why India, being such a big country, could not increase the ratio of doctor and patients. Many patients took the toll for want of doctors, nurses, beds and hospitals.

In this scenario, the NEET Admissions body decreased the percentile so that as many seats as possible could be filled and doctors made ready for uncertain future in light of pandemic. In 2020, the percentile was decreased by 20% and in 2021 it was reduced by 15% leaving a good number of seats unfilled. It went up to Supreme Court which ruled that admissions should not be delayed beyond a point to ensure that the quality of medical education does not suffer. Ultimately, about 1500 seats could not be filled up leaving some hopefuls disappointed.

In light of this, I strongly urge that for this year 2022, the percentile may please be restored to 2020 level i.e. 20% so that all seats are filled up in time and we have specialist doctors ready by 2024. The earlier this is sorted out the better for the MD level of education in India.

D Nagarjuna, Hyderabad

UK politics worth emulating

Though India adopted the British parliamentary system of government, over the years we have failed to follow their democratic system of change of leadership. In the UK, the conservative leaders did not move to a resort outside London and seek the help of Tories to demand Boris Johnson's resignation. The demand for leadership change was made in full view of voters inside the parliament and in the presence of opposition parties. Though in India we have no such crisis at the moment against the leadership of our PM, if ever such a demand is made, those around him would immediately paint their own leaders demanding such a change as anti-national etc.

Leave alone Congress, the BJP which often claim that theirs is a democratic party, whether it is leadership change in Gujarat, Karnataka, Tripura etc, only two people have the power, the leadership don't allow the legislators to seek such a demand inside the assembly. There is no point PM criticising the British model of education, he must first allow his party to follow the British model of democracy, the rest would fall in line. The political drama in Britain was enacted and ended inside parliament and is worth following by our political parties. Unless our voters are not mature, we can't expect our parties to follow the basic democratic practice followed in the UK (UK Prime Minister resigns, 8 July).

N Nagarajan, Hyderabad