Efforts to address traffic problems at Koti circle remain ineffective with scores of commuters forced to face hardships each day in traversing this bustling city centre. All the four arms of this busy commercial centre remain clogged with vehicles, pedestrians, shoppers and sellers resulting in chaos for most of the day and till late in the evening.
Location of the bus stops near Osmania Medical College and hectic road side shopping in the lane towards Badi Chowdi side results in vehicles moving at snail’s pace and also affecting the flow of traffic along Bank Street till Gandhi Gyan Mandir.
Alongside the vehicles, carefully tread the pedestrians. In absence of clearly demarcated free pavement spaces, they end up worriedly walking along the road and their scare gets compounded while crossing the road from one side to another.
In absence of appropriate parking space for vehicles, most of the shoppers and those visiting offices and banks here could be seen leaving their bikes and cars on the road edges. Adding to this, hawkers with offerings that range from hand kerchiefs to cosmetics to apparel could be found lined up. “The civic authorities promise a lot about improvements in city but fail to address the problems of Koti,” says C.Subbarayudu, a senior citizen waiting to cross the road near the Women’s College.
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) move few years back at shifting around 100 book stalls along the road to the subway, which was not in use, too had failed in solving the issues here. Though the road stretch opposite the Andhra Bank has been cleared of these stores, shifting them without required parking space near the subway ended up in creating issues. “Those coming to browse and buy books have to enter the subway but they do not know where to leave their vehicles,” complained one of the store owners.
Along the pavement, hawkers selling old and new text books seem to have surfaced again at couple of places.
The GHMC officials however said these road side book stalls come up on Sundays and added that steps would be taken up to make the footpath spaces available for pedestrians.
“Measures are initiated to ensure the right of pedestrians are not affected and for them to walk along safely and comfortably,” said the GHMC Chief City Planner, G.V. Raghu.
