Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has claimed that it will not be giving any more road digging permissions for any agency from June 1 onwards.
However, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) has been exempted from this ban considering the ongoing key pipeline works in various parts of the twin cities.
The decision was announced by Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy on Tuesday following a meeting with the engineering wing and also because of the advancing monsoon. He called upon various private and Government agencies which were involved in digging of roads for ducts or cables to complete works as soon as possible.
Any agency found digging without permission would face criminal prosecution, he warned. The Water Board too has been directed to complete the remaining road restoration work of 864 km out of the 1464 km dug up for pipelines to supply water to the suburbs under the HUDCO funding by June 10.
Mr. Reddy claimed that of the 488 water stagnation points, repairs were undertaken in 258 sites and works were in progress in 50 other places.
Training
The JNTU-H is training the newly-recruited 200 assistant engineers. The task has been entrusted to Director & Professor for Centre of Excellence on Disaster Management Lakshman Rao. His brief was to educate them about the modern practices in road maintenance and water logging. Each engineer was being given 2 km in key stretches and like that nearly 400 km road would be covered by them to try out innovative solutions with 3-D maps and GIS technology for about four months.
Installation of LEDs
The GHMC has tied up with Central Power Ministry’s EESL to replace 4.54 lakh traditional lights with LEDs - light emitting diodes at a cost of ₹ 270 crore in a seven-year period. The civic body is estimated to save ₹ 1,238.14 crore in power bills once done.
