Rail link to Kakinada a mirage

Rajahmundry: The linking of district headquarters of Kakinada to the main railway line at Pithapuram is progressing at a snail’s pace despite having acquired clearances more than one and a half decades ago. The project was cleared in 1998 for a distance of about 24 kilometres at a cost of Rs 40 crore in the rail budget during the NDA regime.

According to sources, the proposal for the linking Kakinada with Pithapuram on the Vijayawada-Vizag main route has been pending since the 1960s when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister of the country. But the execution of the project is yet to be started despite assurances by the state government of providing the required land.

Several reasons are being attributed for this delay. The first and foremost reason is said to be the lack of efforts during the five year period from 1999-2004 when the Telugu Desam MP Mudragada Padmanabham was representing Kakinada.

The project was kept live in the period by sanctioning token amounts. Things started moving only after 2004 when the present union human resources development minister M.M. Pallam Raju was elected from the constituency. His efforts are said to have paid dividends to some extent during 2004-09. It is said that the efforts did not materialise in the form of execution of the project as the railways changed its policy of sharing costs of project with the states concerned.

Meanwhile, the project cost had escalated by two folds and by 2013 the cost had gone up to Rs120 crore.

The East Godavari Rail Passengers Association president and South Central Railway zonal rail users consultative committee member Y. D. Rama Rao believes that the execution of the project is being delayed despite the consent of Parliament and Railway Board. Rao demanded immediate efforts by all concerned to expedite the execution of the project which is likely to fulfil the five decade old aspirations of the people of the area.