Railways has begun construction of the new zonal headquarters for the South Coast Railway (SCoR) at Mudasarlova and it is likely to be completed by February 2027. In the meantime, two floors of deck building of Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Agency (VMRDA) are getting readied for start of the zonal activities.
With this, the stage has set for the division of the South Central Railway (SCR) and only a gazette notification from the ministry remains. This was informed to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu during a recent meeting with the top officials of SCR and ScoR last month, according to top railway sources. The Chief Minister reviewed the status of the ongoing projects and proposed new works where it was also decided to immediately allow some of these to make use of the available government lands even while taking steps for expediting land acquisition.
Sources said the CCLA has been asked to instruct the district Collectors to give advance possession of government lands coming in the alignment of projects. About 37 projects of 2,259 km costing an estimated ₹33,630 crore have been sanctioned which Mr. Naidu wanted to be completed within the next three years.
He also called for giving priority for the multi-tracking projects including the third and fourth line of Khargapur- Vijayawada- Visakhapatnam section. Railway officials informed that the final location survey and DPR (detailed project report) preparation is in progress for the proposed High Speed Rail Corridor (HSRC) connecting Hyderabad- Bengaluru (via Kurnol, Dhone, Ananthapur,Hindupur) and Hyderabad- Chennai (via Amaravati, Guntur, Ongole, Nellore, Turupathi). These are likely to be submitted to Railway Board (RB) by March 2026.
The Chief Minister wanted the Hyderabad- Chennai HSRC corridor to be connected to the forthcoming international airport at Amaravati. Similarly, the proposed HSRC of Chennai- Bengaluru (DPR already submitted to RB) can be connected with Tirupati. The AP government will send a special request to the Railways to enable this connectivity.
SCR/ScoR officials explained about the plans for setting up of two new mega rail coaching terminals at Gannavaram (On the Vijayawada- Visakhapatnam line) and another near the capital Amaravati are planned. Along with these, the existing arrangements at Vijayawada and Guntur will also be augmented.
Five major stations – Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Tirupathi, Nellore and Rajahmundry are among the 73 stations identified for development as ‘Amrit Stations scheme at an approximate total cost of ₹3,414 crore. New line projects to be taken up and that came up for discussion were: Nadikude – Srikalhasthi, Kotipalli- Narsapur, Rayadurga -Tumumkur, Kadapa- Bengaluru, Sattuaplli Kovvur, Errupalem- Nambur and so on.
Published – November 13, 2025 11:35 pm IST
