Footpaths laid at Vidya Nagar, Navbharat Nagar and Chandramouli Nagar on the Ring Road have become out of bounds for pedestrians.
The Guntur Municipal Corporation which has spent crores on laying of footpaths on the Ring Road had completely looked the other way even as vendors had encroached them.
Pedestrians are forced to share the road space with fast moving vehicles, an ominous sign of lack of road safety.
For instance, the footpath at Koretipadu has been conveniently converted into a parking lot by an automobile dealer. Every day, the dealer parks his new vehicles on the footpath. In some cases, the footpaths run into a side wall at the compound gate.
Senior citizens are not happy the way the footpaths are being maintained. ``Pieces of rubble, sand and mud are strewn all over the road margin. The drains are incomplete and the dirty water end up as a breeding ground for mosquitoes,’’ says K. Lakshminarayana, a resident of Vidya Nagar.
The long and winding Ring Road has emerged as a popular link road in the town. Leading colleges and schools, offices, business houses and tobacco guesthouses are located on the road. The traffic is at its peak during evenings when students come out of colleges. But the absence of proper footpath has often been cited as a major reason behind accidents.
. Town planning officer (in charge) Vijaya Kumar said that they had not received any complaint on encroachments. “We will start clearing encroachments from Monday in a special drive,” he said.
