People of Andhra Pradesh always expressed their anger at successive governments not heeding to their demands and long standing aspirations during budget allocations. Now with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley all set to introduce Budget for the fiscal year 2017-2018, angry people of Andhra Pradesh expect some sops to please them as their state was divided in a unjust manner.
Inspite of repeated requests from AP CM Chandra Babu Naidu, PM Modi and Union Government didnot fulfill most of the poll promises made to the state. Now people of AP are expecting some huge allocations and announcements and that include projects sanctioning in Railway budget as Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu represent Visakhapatnam.
People of Visakhapatnam have been demanding separate zone and rumours are spreading this would be fulfilled with this budget. However people are not believing such rumours as even earlier they were taken for a ride.
People of Vijayawada too are expecting many projects to the railway division. Till now many long standing projects like doubling of lines between Vijayawada and Machilipatnam and Gudivada and Bhimavaram are moving at a snail's pace. The Union government had announced `20,000 crore in the last Railway Budget for the completion of pending projects in teh division but only Rs 200 crore has been released till now.
However experts and Railway Unions feel that merging of Railways and General Budget will further delay the projects. N. Srihari, Users’ Consultative Committee member at Vijayawada railway station says “The Union government is neglecting Vijayawada railway division. The railways ministry which had accepted the proposals for developing satellite stations at Gunadala and Kondapalli to control the huge rush at Vijayawada junction have been kept aside for years due to lack of funds, “
