Call it oversight, indifference or callousness but the road light at a blind curve on Bowenpally main road has not been restored even 48 hours after the gory accident.
The streetlight had not been glowing for the past few days, and the accident in the early hours of Tuesday didn’t move the officials concerned. The driver of the Nizamabad-bound bus, which started from Jubilee Bus Stand in Secunderabad around 3.40 a.m., got burnt and nine passengers were injured, while the remaining 35 passengers had a miraculous escape in the accident.
“Commuters going from Bowenpally to Military Dairy Farm (MDF) side cannot notice oncoming vehicles at the accident spot on the stretch. If the light was on, at least the van driver would have seen the approaching bus,” says Srinivas Yadav, resident of the area. He and others from the locality feel the stretch from Sri Lata Garden junction to Bowenpally Post-Office has been neglected for years by the officials.
No dividerThere is a median on this road -- part of Nizamabad-Hyderabad National Highway -- from MDF to Sri Lata Garden junction which is a few yards away from the accident spot. For some inexplicable reasons, the authorities didn’t put up a divider on this stretch from this junction to Bowenpally police station.
Naturally, head-on collisions were common on this part of the road having deep curves at two places. “If not a median, erecting speed-breakers would have checked accidents but the National Highway Authority staff says speed-breakers are not allowed on highways,” says Bowenpally Inspector N. Sudhir.
Interestingly, a few years ago, local police got speed-breakers put up close to the accident spot after witnessing frequent head-on collisions of vehicles on this stretch. Eventually, the speed-breakers were brought on level with the road due to road relaying works.
Having noticed that heavy vehicles were going up the median, which begins at Sri Lata Garden junction, failing to notice it in the darkness, Mr. Sridhar got signboards erected in the area with the help of locals. “Will light ever dawn on civic authorities who don’t replace lights and highway authorities who don’t lay the median?” ask people of the area.
