The Indian Railways has warned of possible delay, diversion or even termination of trains passing through the Telengana region — one of India’s busiest rail corridors — in Andhra Pradesh tomorrow.
Political organizations demanding the formation of a separate Telenagana state have called for a “Rail Roko” or railway blockade tomorrow to protest against what they see as the Central Government’s about turn on the issue.
“Railways have geared up their machinery to ensure minimum disruption in rail movement and safety of passengers in the affected region. The Railway Administration is also coordinating with the State Administration of Andhra Pradesh to ensure smooth Railway operations as far as possible,” Indian Railways said.
However, it said it would be forced to re-route or cancel or delay trains tomorrow if it felt doing so would be in the interest of “the safety and security of passengers” and such eventualities “cannot be ruled out.”
“Passengers are requested to keep the above in view in connection with their rail journey through this region,” it pointed out.
Most of the Trains heading South from the North of India, except those using the Konkan (Maharashtra coastal) route pass through Telengana, including the trains to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. Some trains to Kerala, however, take the Konkan coast.
India has a history of spinning off big under-developed regions of a state into a new one to give special focus on development. However, in case of Telengana, the Government has gone back on what was seen as an assurance of such a move by claiming that it is yet to “make up its mind” on the matter.
The Telengana, formerly under the Nizam of Hyderabad, is towards the interior of India’s land mass and as is usual in such cases, is under-developed compared to the coastal districts or Seema-Andhra (extreme Andhra.)
A similar demand has been made by the adjoining Vidharbha region, which also faces the same under-development problem when compared to coastal Maharashtra (Konkan.)