Congress party and the YSR Congress has come down heavily on the Railway Budget terming it as an insult to the two States and demanded that the two Chief Ministers – K.Chandrasekhar Rao and N.Chandrababu Naidu reject it outright.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee Vice-President Md. Ali Shabbir livid at the allocations, said Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao should lead a protest at Jantar Mantar. He derided the TRS MP K. Kavitha for praising the budget.

At a press conference here on Friday, he said that allocation of Rs. 2,768 crore for the South Central Railway was insufficient. He said that the meagre allocation was an open insult to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, whose individual annual budgets exceed Rs. 1 lakh crore each.

Giving details of the ongoing projects, Mr. Shabbir said seven major projects related to doubling or tripling of lines cost about Rs. 11,293 crore. He said about 30 major projects valued at Rs. 20,680 crore are pending in both the Telugu States. He derided Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao for failing to secure funds for the projects in his own constituency including 159-km Manoharabad-Kothapalli line.

TS, AP CMs should react: YSRCP

YSR Congress Telangana spokesperson Konda Raghava Reddy at another press conference demanded that Chief Ministers of both states react adequately to highlight the neglect. “While TDP has an alliance, the TRS has no such understanding but still has been silent on the injustice meted out to Telangana state,” he said.

He lamented that though second line between Hyderabad-Mahabubnagar (111 km) would cost Rs.1,200 crore, only a paltry Rs. 27.44 crore was allocated. While children are dying at unmanned railway crossings, there is no mention of construction of under-ways and over-bridges and the Railway University at Warangal was totally ignored. For the Kurnool coach factory, just Rs. 50 lakhs were sanctioned against the required Rs. 10 crores.