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Published & Updated as on -
2010-02-24
Andhra Pradesh got a fair deal in the Railway
Budget announced on Wednesday. The state will have a wagon manufacturing
factory at Secunderabad to be set up in public private partnership. The
specifics of the project would be worked shortly, according to South Central
Railway (SCR) general manager MS Jayanth.
Addressing
a press conference here today, he said SCR had also been sanctioned a sports
academy at Secunderabad. Even as the Centre proposed to take up 1,000 km new
lines, the division has been allotted a fifth of that, he said.
Among others, AP has been
sanctioned eight Adarsh stations and an equal number of multi-functional
complexes. It also figured in north-south, east-south and south-south dedicated
freight corridors. The preliminary engineering-cum-traffic survey for these
will be taken up this year, the general manager said.
The Railways would welcome participation of
the private sector for providing rail connectivity to Vadarevu and Nizampatnam
ports in the state.
“This
is a development Budget and all earlier projects would be taken up,” he said,
adding allocation for SCR for new lines normally was around Rs 150 crore but
that has been increased five times to Rs 750 crore this year.
Also, 21 new trains have
been sanctioned as compared with two last year and three the previous year.
Passenger amenities too would improve as the sanction this year was higher at
Rs 227 crore as compared with Rs 118 crore.
The
Union government has set a freight loading target of 944 million tonne for
2010-11, of which SCR would contribute about 100 million tonne.
He said there were about
4,000 vacancies in the SCR division and they would be filled according to the
policy of the Railway Recruitment Board. The question papers would also be set
in Telugu apart from Hindi, Urdu and English.
Source:
Business Standard 25/2/10
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