Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court directed railway ministry and South Central Railway authorities to decide on the diversion of cargo handling and warehousing operations from Sanathnagar Goods Shed to alternative good sheds at Moula Ali, Charlapalli, Nagalpalli and Shankarpalli stations.
Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka while disposing a 10-year long pending petition filed by residents of Sanathnagar locality, questioned the Railway department for delaying in diversion of the warehousing operations from the Sanathnagar Goods Shed to others, despite the Railway Board taking a policy decision to incentivise the usage of alternate goods sheds for loading/unloading purposes and the senior division operations managers had already twice in 2009 and 2016 recommended diversion of cargo handling and warehousing operations from Sanathnagar goods shed to alternative good sheds.
The grievance espoused by the petitioners is that the goods shed and warehousing operations undertaken by the Railways in Sanathnagar locality is causing heavy traffic in the locality due to movement of heavy vehicles carrying cargo.
S. Sridhar, counsel for the petitioner argued that the burgeoning traffic due to round-the-clock warehousing operations and movement of heavy vehicles potentially lead to accidents and danger to the residents of the locality.
Public representatives on behalf of the colony residents gave several representations, but no action has been taken till date on those recommendations.
The court directing the authorities to shift the good shed, however, viewed that at the same time the intent of the policy decision by the Railway Board is not to entirely do away with the existing heavy volume goods sheds but to offload certain loading/unloading activity so as not to cause hindrance or unduly obstruct other activities at such railway stations and also the economy of the industries located in the vicinity is dependent on the goods being shipped/loaded/unloaded at specific points.
Justice Nagesh Bheemapka also viewed that any judicial review of such a policy decision would skew the economic activity and livelihood of the industries located in the vicinity as well as abutting localities.
