Telangana’s Kazipet Railway Manufacturing unit remains dream even after Modi’s announcement

Hyderabad: After much dilly-dallying by the Centre over the Railway Manufacturing Unit at Kazipet, the announcement by the Modi government last year had rekindled the hopes of the people of Telangana, but the project has failed to take off even after 15 months.

Though the Centre claimed that it was taking steps to set up a Railway Manufacturing Unit, the efforts are not visible at the field level. Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for a Railway Manufacturing Unit at Kazipet on July 8, 2023. In the same month, the Railway Board instructed the South Central Railways (SCR) and Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) to undertake the works for upgradation of Wagon Periodic Overhauling Workshop to Railway Manufacturing Unit for manufacturing and maintaining of a modern rolling stock. However, nothing much has happened in the last 15 months and now the board is claiming that it has written a letter in September this year asking the SCR and RVNL to take up the work. Though three months have passed, nothing is still visible at the ground level.

On Thursday, union Home Secretary Govind Mohan held a review meeting on the extent to which the provisions mentioned in the 13th Schedule of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act-2014 have been implemented in Telangana, in which he told Telangana Chief Secretary A Santhi Kumari that a letter was written by the Railway Board on September 18 to the General Manager of SCR and Chairman and Managing Director of RVNL to take action in this regard. Surprised, Shanti Kumari reportedly told the Home Secretary that the State government was not aware of the development.

Sources say the Railway Board has advised the SCR and RVNL to first work out a plan to develop facilities to produce the Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB) and Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) coaches at the Railway Manufacturing Unit at Kazipet.

The BRS government had acquired 150 acres for the Railway Manufacturing Unit and handed it over to the railways. The then Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao had written several letters to centre and the Railway Board to set up a rail coach factory at Kazipet. In fact, Rama Rao criticised the Centre for announcing the setting up of a rail coach factory in Assam last year and sought an explanation for the denial of the Kazipet rail coach factory to Telangana, which is one of the clauses in the AP Reorganisation Act.

The demand for a Railway coach factory in Kazipet is perhaps the only issue that has been alive and kicking since the early 1980s but without any headway. The proposal to establish a coach factory in Kazipet dates to 1982. However, due to political reasons, it was later given to Kapurthala in Punjab when PV Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. Again in 2010-11, the then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee sanctioned a wagon factory on a public-private partnership (PPP) besides allocating Rs. 15 crore in the Railway Budget. Though the State government allotted 64 acres, the SCR didn’t take possession of it citing legal disputes and encroachments.

Over the years, the demand has been a bone of contention between the Opposition and treasury benches in the Parliament but never taken to a logical end. Now also it looks like the project will take quite some time to take shape as nothing much has been done in the last one and half year.