There will be no displacement of staff nor any major loss of revenue due to the bifurcation of Waltair Division, and the majority of the staff would continue to be posted in Visakhapatnam, said S.S. Srinivas, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) of the Vizag-headquartered South Coast Railway (SCoR).

The Narendra Modi government had announced that one part of Waltair Division would be merged with the proposed Rayagada Division in Odisha and the other with Vijayawada Division in Andhra Pradesh. This had sparked speculation that the revenue-earning portion would be lost to Odisha and that merging the residual part of Waltair Division with Vijayawada Division would lead to a largescale displacement of employees.

Mr. Srinivas, who assumed charge as OSD of SCoR in Visakhapatnam on March 11, had extensively toured the proposed Divisions of SCoR and interacted with employees and trade union leaders, besides studying the revenue model of the areas under Waltair Division, presently spread across Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

“The employees of Waltair Division were initially worried that they would have to move to either Vijayawada or Rayagada Divisions in due course. The people of Visakhapatnam region were also worried that Vizag would lose its entire freight revenue to the new Division being carved out at Rayagada. Both these apprehensions are not true,” the OSD told The Hindu.

No operational changes

Both the jurisdictions would have a positive revenue potential even after bifurcation of the divisions.

An analysis of the 2018-19 fiscal reveals that the bifurcated Odisha part to come under the jurisdiction of new Rayagada Division, generated originating goods loading of 22.01 million tonnes, 1.22 crore passengers and total earnings of ₹2,443 crore.

The A.P. part of Waltair Division had generated originated goods loading of 39.9 million tonnes, 3.18 crore passengers and total earnings of ₹5,464 crore. These cannot be physically lifted and carried away to either Rayagada or Vijayawada. The goods and passenger traffic is location-specific and would continue as before, the OSD said.

Even after bifurcation, the traffic and revenue generation would continue to be controlled from Vizag for A.P. and from Rayagada for Odisha part, Mr. Srinivas told The Hindu.