WARANGAL: The Warangal district administration on Wednesday handed over 150.05 acres to the railways to set up a Periodic Overhauling Workshop in Kazipet. This clears a major hurdle for the project which was sanctioned way back in 2016.
While the district administration intended to hand over land belonging to the Seetharama Swamy temple in Ayodhyapuram village, local farmers who were cultivating the land opposed it.
Panchayat raj minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao said as the land belongs to the endowments department, the issue had to be sorted out in court. That caused a delay in procurement of the land.
Ultimately, permission was secured and Rs 56.86 crore was spent on acquiring the land: Rs 45.3 crore at Rs 30 lakh per acre and Rs 11 crore paid to 114 farmers as compensation at Rs 8 lakh per acre.
Reminding that the setting up of a railway wagon factory has been a long-standing dream of the people of Warangal, Dayakar Rao said he would go to New Delhi and pressurise the Centre for the factory.
“With the support of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and IT minister K.T. Rama Rao, we will go to New Delhi and appeal to the Centre and put forth our demand to set up the wagon factory in Kazipet,” Dayakar Rao said. He said he would also ask the Centre to Kazipet as a railway division as such projects would bring employment to the locals.
The coach factory was first sanctioned to Kazipet in 1982 and a wagon factory proposal in 2010 was called back due to various reasons.
Government Chief Whip Dasyam Vinay Bhaskar, MPs Banda Prakash, Pasunuri Dayakar, mayor Gunda Prakash Rao, MLCs Kadiam Srihari, Basvaraju Saraiah, MLA Aruri Ramesh, Warangal Urban Collector Rajeev Gandhi Hanmanthu, GWMC Commissioner Pamela Satpati, Kazipet railway officials and others were present.
