Siddipet will get train by April: Harish Rao

Speaking at a review meeting on the work, Rao said officials were aiming to complete the track up to Duddeda by March and to Siddipet by April so that the Railways could operate trains.

Siddipet: Finance Minister T Harish Rao, who inspected works of the Manoharabad-Kothapally railway line on Tuesday, said train services would be operated from Siddipet from April next year since the works were progressing at a brisk pace.

Speaking at a review meeting on the work, Rao said officials were aiming to complete the track up to Duddeda by March and to Siddipet by April so that the Railways could operate trains. Terming the train connection to Siddipet a decade-old dream, Rao said the Railways had completed the first phase of works up to Gajwel for 44km from Manoharabad. While Gajwel already had train services, the second phase of work from Gajwel to Siddipet was going on at a brisk phase. The railway track would be extended up to Sircilla in phase 3 and to Karimnagar via Vemulawada in phase 4.

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Stating Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao was determined to get train services to Sddipet, he said the project was granted when Chandrashekhar Rao was union Labour Minister in 2005. Since the State had to bear the expenses of land acquisition and one-third of the project expenses, Harish Rao said the Telangana government had so far spent Rs.500 crore on the railway line.

Collector Prashanth Jeevan Patil, Deputy Chief Engineer (Railways) Santosh Kumar, Assistant Executive Engineer Somaraju, Additional Collector Srinivas Reddy and others were present.