On every Gandhi Jayanti, the South Central Railway (SCR) also celebrates its anniversary. Celebrations are low key generally and the raging pandemic ensured it remained so this year too. Yet, the 54th anniversary is special since the zone has remained intact and is likely to remain so for sometime to come.
If things went according to the political landscape prevailing a couple of years ago, the SCR would have been cut down to size with three of the six zones - Vijayawada, Guntur and Guntakal to be joined to the proposed South Coast Railway (SoCR) with Visakhapatnam as the headquarters.
Ambiguous stance
“If it happens, the SCR will have its hands and legs cut off leaving just the torso as it would have just Secunderabad, Hyderabad and Nanded divisions,” commented a senior official. However, as things stand now, the formation of the new division has been put on the back burner although the Railways Ministry continuous to maintain an ambiguous stance.
For instance, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said that the proposal was still under consideration to a question raised in Parliament, and to another question, he said there was a plan to reduce the number of divisions from the existing 17!
Doubts arise as the Indian Railways has already unleashed a frenetic set of reforms, including a major restructuring in the functioning, with the Railway Board itself cut to size to four from eight and a new management cadre about to be unveiled.
OSDs posted out
Secondly, two very senior officials appointed as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to oversee the transition phase of the formation of the new zone, and cutting the SCR to size have been posted out in the last couple of years. Vijayawada divisional railway manager is holding it as an additional charge these days giving sufficient hints about priority of the issue.
The Indian Railways is already battling crises brought about by COVID-19 with limited number of passenger trains and huge dip in revenues this year although there is a concerted effort to give a push to the freight trains taking advantage of the relatively free lines, point out senior officials.
SCR formation had its own twist and turns after it came into being in 1966 on October 2 when Hubli and Vijayawada divisions of the Southern Railway, and Sholapur and Secunderabad divisions of Central Railway were carved out and merged into a new zone. Later, Guntakal division of the Southern Railway was also merged with SCR in 1977 and Sholapur division was remerged with the Central Railway.
Secunderabad division was further split into Secunderabad and Hyderabad divisions in 1978. Again in 2003, two new divisions like Guntur and Nanded were operationalised transferring Hubli division to newly formed South Western Railway.
Forming the key link between North and South India, the zone used to have more than 700 passenger trains travelling up and down with another 100-150 freight trains, senior officials said.