HYderabad, February 26: After a wait of several years, the South Central Railway (SCR) has at last got a good deal in the Budget.
In all, 28 new services, including a Doronto, a Shatabdi and seven express trains have been sanctioned, against 21 new trains last year.
The Doronto, a tri-weekly superfast train, will run between Visakhapatnam and Secunderabad while the Shatabdi will connect Pune and Secunderabad.
In terms of infrastructure too, the Railway budget has given the South Central Railway a much higher share. Against a cumulative allocation of Rs.1,500 crore for the past three years for new railway lines and other projects, the zone has been sanctioned Rs.3,666 crore for 2011-12 alone.
At a press conference here on Friday, General Manager-SCR, M.S. Jayanth, said an amount of Rs.641 crore had been sanctioned for the much-awaited Phase II of MMTS, the local train service in the State capital. The State government will bear two-thirds of the cost.
Another salient feature is the emphasis on safety. The Renigunta-Hospet stretch has been selected for field trials of the Railways’ Anti-Collision Device, he said. Under the Railway Ministry’s proposal to completely cover every unmanned level crossing in the country over a period of five years, SCR has the task of covering 1,118 unmanned level crossings.
Emphasising on the Railways’ focus on new lines, Mr. Jayanth said the zone would complete this year itself, work on 171 km of new lines, out of a total of 700 km all over Indian Railways. “Executing work is not a problem. The only hassle relates to land acquisition as we follow outdated procedures of notifying acquisition four times. We have requested the Chief Minister to help set up an exclusive cell to handle this issue,” he said.
–Agencies