HYDERABAD: The pockmarked city roads are not only inconveniencing the commuters but have also claimed lives over the past few days. A 24-year-old Ch Chanakya Reddy, a software engineer, was rushing to his office on his bike on Sept 13 when he skidded near the Hitech city flyover while avoiding a pothole. He was run over by a speeding taxi.
In another incident, S Kashyap (25) suffered grievous injuries when he fell from his motorcycle on the Greenlands flyover in front of Chief Minister’s camp office. These two incidents clearly tell us about the pathetic conditions of potholed roads in the city and how driving on these roads are giving commuters a nightmare.
The city roads, which were already in a bad shape due to poor maintenance by the engineering wing of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), were further damaged in the recent rains. A total of 1,78,973 metres length of road have been damaged across the city. Roads in 1,124 areas in the city were badly damaged.
Facing flak from every side, the GHMC has finally decided to take up road repair works from Friday onwards. “At least `100 crore is needed to rebuild the damaged roads in the city. For now, we are going to recarpet the roads up to a length of 180 km across the city. This would cost around `75 crore. From Friday onwards, the works will be carried out at a brisk pace. We have divided the total works into 486 packages,” the GHMC officials said.
However, the way the civic body is taking up temporary patchworks to fill the potholes seem to be of no use as Bituminious Tar (BT) is peeling off in no time. Hence, commuters on the city roads are demanding that roads be rebuilt, instead of taking up piecemeal approach. “All roads in the city are filled with potholes. But, till date GHMC has not filled the potholes,” M Shravan Kumar, a resident of SR Nagar said.
‘Bad roads a result of poor governance’ Social Scientist C Ramachandraiah said pathetic roads in Hyderabad are a result of poor urban governance. Instead of strengthening the governance and providing adequate funds for developmental activities, state government is weakening the civic bodies by controlling the ULBs, he alleged. According to him, as the mayor has no say in GHMC’s day-to-day activities, any developmental work has to get the consent of the CM or Urban Development minister KT Ram Rao.