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Wagon factory set to be a poll plank for GWMC elections
Highlights
The token allotment of just Rs 1,000 in the 2015-16 budget and the subsequent views expressed by the Ministry of Railways are any indication; the more than three-decade-old dream of a wagon factory in Kazipet is certain to languish in cold storage for some more time to come.
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Warangal: The token allotment of just Rs 1,000 in the 2015-16 budget and the subsequent views expressed by the Ministry of Railways are any indication; the more than three-decade-old dream of a wagon factory in Kazipet is certain to languish in cold storage for some more time to come.With the Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWMC) elections are around the corner, in all likelihood the parties may cash in on taking the long-pending wagon factory demand to the poll plank.
Since the UPA Government had agreed to set up a wagon manufacturing unit at Kazipet in 2011 at an estimated cost of Rs 152.26 crore, the proposal remained only on paper. The then Minister for Railways Mamata Banerjee sanctioned the unit on a public-private partnership (PPP) mode and released Rs 15 crore.
Thereafter, the South Central Railway didn’t take possession of the land allotted for the unit on the pretext of legal disputes and encroachments. Later, the district administration, which acquired the 54-acre land adjacent to Mettu Ramalingeswara Swamy temple and Ayodhyapuram village from the Endowments Department, handed it over to the Railways.
But there was no mention of the wagon factory in the budget. The Railways has just allocated Rs 1,000 crore as a token amount to keep the project alive for future traffic requirement.
If one goes by the Minister of State for Railways, Manoj Sinha’s reply to the Telangana MP, AP Jithender Reddy’s query in the Parliament that they didn’t set any time line to start the project, the dreams of Warangal people may not fructify in the near future.
The DCC Official Spokesperson, Md Ankus, who in the past led quite a few protests demanding the wagon factory, said, “The Railway Minister’s answer clearly indicates that the BJP government, which promised wagon factory during the polls, is backtracking on its words.” Though the Congress government led by N Kiran Kumar Reddy had released Rs 18 crore for the land acquisition, the wagon factory proposal made no headway due to the apathetic approach of the subsequent governments at the State and the Centre, he added.
Speaking to The Hans India, AP Jithender Reddy, the Floor Leader of the TRS in Lok Sabha, said, “We are waiting for the decision of the Railway Ministry as it had agreed to verify the supply and demand position of the wagons in the country before it takes any further step.”
Adepu Mahender
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