With the Union Railway minister stating that the announcement for a separate zone for Andhra Pradesh will be made by this month-end, South Central Railway employees who are unwilling to shift have started petitioning the authorities. With creation of a separate zone, the over 1 lakh sanctioned strength of railway employees will be divided between the two zones and many will have to relocate to either Vijayawada or Visakhapatnam.
 
Employees are not willing to shift base as most prefer Hyderabad with its social and educational amenities. There is also uncertainty over whether the new zone will be headquartered at Vijayawada or Visakhapatnam. Railway employees, worried over the impending bifurcation of the zone, have started making representations and are writing appeal letters, asking to be given a choice of location, say insiders.
 
“A number of requests from employees are already coming in to consider them for certain locations, as most are worried that their opinion will not be sought,” said a highly placed source.
 
Currently, the South Central Railway has five divisions, Vijayawada, Guntakal, Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Nanded. As per ongoing talks, the new railway zone will either be headquartered at Vijayawada or Visakhapatnam. In the latter case, the entire Visakhapatnam division will have to be shifted to the new Zone from the current East Cost Zone.
 
“In case of a straight split without clubbing Visakhapatnam division, the promotion prospects of the employees of the new zone will lessen. In case Visakhapatnam is clubbed with the new zone, it will become a good zone in terms of profits. Employees are not in favour of shifting to Visakhapatnam although 70 per cent may favour Vijayawada.
 
“Given the first choice, none of the employees want to shift out of Hyderabad/ Secunderabad due to the established lifestyle and social infrastructure,” said general secretary of Railway Mazdoor Union Shankar Rao.