Fruits of bifurcation: Locals fume at raw deal

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, May 30, 2014: Vizagites are furious over the raw deal to the region with majority projects reportedly being taken away by Vijayawada-Guntur cluster. TD Chief N Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to take oath as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh near Vijayawada has given room for the speculations that, the Vijayawada-Guntur cluster would be the capital. However, the citizens of Vizag have been demanding Vizag be made the capital saying that the city has readymade infrastructure required to be a capital. It is also leant that he would spend equal number of days in Guntur and Hyderabad and would run the government from the temporary CMO to be set up in Nagarjuna University.

There are also reports the new railway division sanctioned by the union government as part of the bifurcation deal will be named as South Coastal Railway Zone and its headquarters will be either in Guntur or Vijayawada. There has been long pending demand even before the state was divided regarding a separate railway zone with headquarters at Vizag since the present Waltair Division comes under East Coast Railway of Bhubaneswar in Odisha.

“Dedicated rail network, plays a very important role in exports. Currently both the ports are handling 85 million tonnes of cargo per annum. They have plans to augment their facilities to handle cargo of 200 million tonnes by 2020 for which separate railway zone with Vizag as headquarters is highly essential. Otherwise they fear if enough rakes are not provided by ECoR controlled by Odisha, the cargos may shift to Paradip and Gopalapur ports making a hole in the local pockets,” opined former, CII Vizag chapter chairman, G Sambasiva Rao.

Now, some reports emerged that new state’s Cyberabad aka IT towers will also be developed between Gannavaram-Eluru corridor whereas there is so much of land available in Vizag and already a good number of IT companies are being run from the city. Locals are also of the opinion that Vijayawada- Guntur cluster being capital will have the priority for an international airport and additional power allocation.

 “It’s very sad that Vizag is getting nothing. Capital, new railway zone, premier institutions, international airport, IT towers, additional power will only go to the capital region, which is going to be Vijayawada-Guntur. Unfortunately Vizag lacks strong leadership to lobby for the development of the city, which is known as jewel of the east coast. City has everything but no committed and dynamic lobby groups,” said O Naresh Kumar of Vizag Development Council (VDC)