No railway coach factory at Kazipet, Centre clarifies

The union government on Friday declared that there were no plans to establish the Rail Coach Factory at Kazipet in Telangana.

Hyderabad: In utter disregard to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, the union government on Friday declared that there were no plans to establish the Rail Coach Factory (RCF) at Kazipet in Telangana. Notwithstanding the repeated requests from the State government and allocation of necessary land, the Centre had been evading establishment of the RCF at Kazipet.

In a written reply to a question by BRS MP KR Suresh Reddy in Rajya Sabha on Friday, union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw reiterated the Centre’s stand stating that a prerequisite for setting up of Rail Coach Factory was a sustained demand of coaches in the future. He stated that currently, the existing capacity and planned augmentation of capacities in existing factories were sufficient to meet Indian Railways requirements in the near future.

Since the formation of Telangana State, the BJP government at the Centre had maintained that there was no need for a new railway coach factory. However, in the last eight years, the union government sanctioned two railway coach factories – one at Latur in Maharashtra last year and another at Kokrajhar in Assam two days ago.

BRS working president and Minister KT Rama Rao had recently expressed his disappointment over the Centre’s discrimination towards Telangana in sanction of the Rail Coach Factory. He asked for an explanation from any of the BJP MPs or the union Minister from Telangana to speak on why the promised Kazipet Rail Coach factory was being denied while other states were being granted.

Apart from generating thousands of employment opportunities, the railway coach factory was expected to boost infrastructure and economy in the surrounding localities of Kazipet. With the Centre shelving the proposals, youth of Telangana have lost employment opportunities and the surrounding areas of Kazipet were deprived of economic boost.

Though the union government assured to establish the Periodic Overhauling Workshop in Kazipet, there has been no major progress except for completion of the tender process. Sources said it would take at least two years for the workshop to get operationalised.