HYDERABAD: The South-Central Railway (SCR), headquartered in Secunderabad, Telangana, is poised for a major restructuring that will transfer three of its six divisions, Vijayawada, Guntur, and Guntakal, to the newly formed South Coast Railway (SCoR) zone created under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. Once the split is completed, SCR’s route length will shrink from 6,637
km to 3,532 km, and its workforce of roughly 80,000 employees will be reduced by about half.
The Vijayawada division alone generated ₹5,841.89 crore of SCR’s gross revenue of ₹20,569.51 crore in FY 2024‑25. At present, SCR runs around 550 trains daily across 700 stations covering Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and parts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Madhya Pradesh. After
realignment, SCR will retain the Secunderabad, Hyderabad, and Nanded divisions, while SCoR will consist of Vijayawada, Guntur, Guntakal, and Visakhapatnam (Waltair), giving the new zone roughly 3,386 route km.
A senior SCR official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the streamlined zone would allow tighter supervision, quicker inspections improved punctuality, and faster redressal of passenger grievances. The official added that SCR will gain an additional 350 km of track between
Raichur and Wadi in Karnataka as part of the reorganisation.
Meanwhile, railway unions are renewing their long-standing demand to establish a separate Kazipet division within the reconfigured SCR. S.K.P. Hazari, assistant general secretary of the SCR Rail Mazdoor Union, argued that a Kazipet division would create about 2,000 direct and indirect
jobs and enable quicker onsite responses during emergencies, noting that many railway families already reside in the Kazipet area.
