Telangana State not cooperating: Rail Minister Ashwini Vaishnav

The Centre doing all that is necessary, but the state government should also come on board to cooperate in the land acquisition and provide its share to speed up the railway projects — Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnav

Hyderabad: Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnav on Saturday said that for past two to three years, the Telangana Government had stopped cooperating in putting railway projects on fast track despite several letters and repeated follow ups, there has been no response from the state government.

Talking to the media, Ashwini Vaishnav said the Centre was doing all that was necessary, but the state government should also come on board to cooperate in the land acquisition and provide its share to speed up the projects. As part of Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act, Ashwini said the Centre had awarded a tender for setting up a Railway Wagon manufacturing unit in Kazipet in January. Works can start if the state government allocates land of 160 acres. It has so far given only 150 acres. Still the Centre was going ahead with the project so that production can begin in next four or five years.

He said that in this railway budget, Telangana got a record allocation of Rs 4,418 crore as against a mere Rs 850 crore for the united AP between 2009-14. The total worth of projects in Telangana were Rs 29,561 crore.

But it is unfortunate that there is very little support and cooperation from the state government. The focus appears to be more on politics and not on infrastructure development, he rued.

He said the allocation can be further increased if the state government provides its share and clears land acquisition and gives permissions. The railway minister said that under the Amrith Bharat Scheme (ABS), the railways will take up modernisation of several railway stations in Telangana, including the re-development of Secundrabad station with Rs 715 crore. The minister said the railway has conducted feasibility studies and planning to introduce Vade Bharat trains from Telangana on several other routes.

Dismissing the Centre has any intention of privatising the railway, he said Telangana IT Minister KT Ramarao should know the facts. The Minister said since Hyderabad had emerged as an IT hub and hub for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and high technologies, it was decided to start two centres of excellence in Hyderabad for 6G technologies and the other related to the railway technology related to IoT, AI and ML, at IIT, Hyderabad and IRISAT, respectively with Central funds. Similarly, efforts are also on to test and introduce world-class Vande Metro trains between two proximate cities falling within 40 km to 100 km. It will take 12 to 16 months to come up with a prototype and then test it for a year.

Vande Metro

Efforts are on to test and introduce world-class Vande Metro trains between two proximate cities falling within 40 km to 100 km. It will take 12 to 16 months to come up with a prototype and then test it for a year