Railway Budget Disappointing For Telangana: TRS

Multiple Telangana ministers expressed displeasure at the railway budget for 2016-17 presented in Parliament today by Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

Telangana Housing and Endowments Minister A Indrakaran Reddy expressed great dissatisfaction with the budget. Injustice had been meted out to Telangana by the budget as no demands sought by the State government were taken into cognizance, he lamented.

"The Union Government has ignored our rail needs and watered down our hopes," he said.

The Minister's remarks do ring true - the railway budget did not mention about the State government's insistence on a coach factory at Kazipet in the Warangal district and the extension of the MMTS to the Yadadri temple in the Nalgonda district, despite Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao recently seeking of the Centre these projects. The Centre also failed to keep up its promises with regard to new trains for the Peddapalli-Karimngar-Nizamabad, Manoharabad-Kothapalli and Bhadrachalam-Sathupalli lines.

However, Reddy expressed hope that at least in the supplementary budget Prabhu would offer some remedy.

Another minister Jogu Ramanna, too, expressed anguish and dismay at the budget, saying that injustice had been done to the Adilabad district by it not being allotted any project.

"Though there is no direct rail connectivity between Adilabad (that connects Maharashtra) and Hyderabad, the Centre has been short-sighted with our proposals," he complained.

Ramanna flayed the Centre for "totally failing" to consider the Telangana's proposals. He, too, asked the Centre to do justice to the State in the supplementary budget of the railways.

Even the Telangana TDP echoed similar views. Politburo member of Telugu Desam Party Ravula Chandra Shekar Reddy said that the Telangana people had expected a decision on the Kazipet Coach Factory in this budget and that the Andhra Pradesh people had expected the promised Visakha railway zone, but the railway minister hadn't announced either of the two projects. He was also dissatisfied that Yadadri had not found a place in the spiritual centers proposed to be modernized.

Congress leader Ponnam Prabhakar and CPI state secretary Chada Venkat Reddy, too, expressed disappointment over a coach factory at Kazipet being ignored yet again.