Is the Municipal Corporation indifferent to the problems being faced by the TTD in the maintenance of roads in Tirupati? Call it impuissance on the part of the authorities or the die hard attitude of the freebooters seeking shelter under the leaders of the ruling political party, the answer is ‘Yes’ if the growing encroachments of the TTD roads are any indication.
Nine major roads including the Tirumala–Alipiri bypass, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Alipiri to Pudipatla and the roads encircling the local temples — about 26 km — are being maintained by the TTD.
During this fiscal alone, the TTD has sanctioned about Rs. 12 crores for taking up works like renewal of BT and construction of footpaths. As a token of its contribution to the much-touted ‘Smart City’ status, the TTD had also taken up beautification works to the footpaths (along the roads under its control).
The irony is that despite incurring such huge expenditure, the TTD roads have always proved ‘sitting ducks’ whenever the lower rung political leaders encouraged the invasion of pavements.
Though the encroachments are at their peak on the entire stretch of the Tirumala bypass road, the location particularly in front of the monolithic Srinivasam complex remains marooned by bunks, pushcarts and unauthorised hawkers leaving little space for pedestrian movement.
What is more perturbing is the fact that the municipal authorities in the process of rehabilitating the encroachers identified a prime land adjacent to the Srinivasam complex sometime back but were forced to give-up the idea as the land belonged to the TTD which reportedly turned down the request.
The failure of the task force formed with the senior officials of the TTD, district revenue, police, TUDA and the Municipal Corporation to ensure the overall development of the town and check the encroachments is one of the main reasons that has led to the increase in the unauthorised occupations.
