There is no end to scepticism and “we cannot clear all the doubts over the formation of the railway zone,”city BJP MP K. Haribabu (BJP) said.
Mr. Haribabu told the media here on Thursday that “it is an achievement and fulfilment of a long-cherished dream of the people of the region and we should view it in the larger interests of the State and the region.”
“Some people are talking about the loss of revenue due to the bifurcation of Waltair division. How can they say such things when the contours of the zone are still to be mapped and decided?” he asked.
Moreover, people should understand that the entire revenue generated by any zone or division goes to the Indian Railways. In such a scenario, the argument of revenue loss does not hold water, said Mr. Haribabu.
“It is not the matter of revenue, as railway zones and divisions are not demarcated like State boundaries. What is to be seen are larger benefits such as employment generation for local youth, more train services and freedom to take up development at the zonal level,” he said.
‘Venkaiah’s role’
The MP said Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu took up the matter when he was a Minister in the NDA government with the then Minister Sadananda Gowda and his predecessors Suresh Prabhu and Piyush Goyal.
Party leader D. Purandeswari said it was unfortunate that some of the leaders in the Opposition had reacted negatively to the formation of the zone.
“The BJP or for that matter Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never projected development as a poll plank,” she said.
“Our youth were thrashed and their hall tickets were torn when they had gone to Bhubaneswar to write RRB. Now, they have nothing to fear as the zone is empowered to hold its own RRB in its region,” she said.
MLC PVN Madhav said that if at all there are some minor glitches, they could be sorted out over a period of time.
He also took a dig at Nara Lokesh, the Chief Minister’s son and State IT Minister, for his negative tweet on the zone. He said: “It only exposes the ignorance of Mr. Lokesh,” he added.