The dream of a motorist to commute on the Begumpet main road without any roadblocks has remained just that – a dream. Though civic authorities tried to clear one of the main roadblocks by widening the road on Shyamlal Nala recently, the stretch is still not fully usable owing to the unfinished works.
Drain works
The wall of the storm water drain continues to stand right in the middle of the road and the newly built slab towards the Pantaloon shop is not properly paved forcing motorists to use the original narrow road stretch. Compounding the problems, the authorities have failed to repair the stretch that was dug up by CPDCL on this busy road resulting in protracted traffic jams extending right up to Wesley Degree College on S.P. Road.
“The Begumpet main road is in shambles leading to huge traffic jams on the road. The time taken to cross this area has almost doubled because of this,” a motorist, Y. Ram Mohan Reddy complained. The arterial road that connects areas such as Ameerpet, Punjagutta, Banjara Hills and surroundings is also beset with other problems.
Road extension is also affected due to delay in acquiring two properties near Shopper's Stop; the open land of the Alladdin Building and Jabbar building, a private property which is caught in legal tangles.
The extension of road on Shyamlal Nala adjacent to Kochar buildings is taking its own sweet time as the cables underlying the bridge are being shifted.
With recent road cutting on this stretch, the problems for motorists have only compounded as the road restoration work has been neglected. “The whole area gets filled with dust as there is a continuous movement of vehicles and uneven surface poses a danger to the two-wheeler drivers,” P. Sandhya another motorist said.
With rains coming, the stretch would become more hazardous, she pointed out. While motorists commuting on this road are a worried lot, municipal authorities expressed their inability to address the situation as stretch is maintained by the Roads and Buildings (R&B) Department.
R&B road
“GHMC cannot take up repairs as this road is under the R&B. We have requested the government to transfer the road possession to us to expedite maintenance work of all major roads in the city belonging to the department. It is still hanging fire,” said GHMC Engineer-in-Chief R. Dhan Singh. R&B has about 250 kilometres of main road under its jurisdiction, he added.
