Budget 2019: More funds, no projects for South Central Railway

Hyderabad: The South Central Railway was allocated Rs 5,924 crore against last year’s Rs 5,752 crore in the interim Budget presented in Parliament on Friday.

New projects were not announced, and the money was allocated to ongoing work on railway lines, traffic facilities and improvement of passenger amenities.

Briefing mediapersons about the Budget, SCR additional general manager John Thomas said, “Any announcement regarding our proposals can be expected only in the General Budget. As this was an interim budget, there are no new projects.”

The 56-km Bhadrachalam-Sattupalli line, which was started in 2010, was given Rs 405 crore. The project has been jointly  taken up by the SCR and Singareni Colleries and is scheduled for completion in the next two years after land is acquired.

The 246-km Munirabad-Mahabubnagar line, sanctioned in 1997, was allocated Rs 275 crore and Rs 200 crore was earmarked for the Manoharabad-Kothapalli line.

The MMTS Phase-II project was allocated Rs 10 lakh. The Railways has already spent about Rs 540 crore on the project and the rest of the funding has to come from the state government.

Employee unions were displeased that the Budget did not speak about filling up vacancies. “There are about 20,000 vacancies in South Central Railway, out of the 2.5 lakh in the Indian Railways. How can we run services smoothly if the vacant posts are not filled in time”, said Mr K. Shivkumar, general secretary, SCR Mazdoor Union.