Holding the ongoing Metro Rail project partly responsible for the poor condition of several roads in the city, Minister for Roads & Buildings Tummala Nageswara Rao asked the officials of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to make all roads in the city pothole-free before the onset of monsoon so that citizens were not put to any inconvenience.
At a review meeting held here on Saturday with the heads of all line departments of GHMC, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and the Commissioner, he directed them to take up road repairs and other related work before the onset of monsoon. He told them to be alert and ready to tackle any emergency situation during the rainy season and not to repeat the mistakes that occurred during the last season.
The purpose of the meeting was monsoon preparedness and preparing an action plan for coordination among all the heads of line departments to take up the work in a systematic and phased manner to derive good results. The roads under the control of R&B, National Highways and the ones under GHMC and HMDA – radial and other roads – must be kept pothole-free, he said.
The Minister pointed out that lack of proper drinking water, storm water and underground drainage systems, frequent leakage of sewer and drinking water pipelines, lack of control/coordination on road digging, encroachment of nalas and tanks, lack of proper system for underground cabling and encroachment of footpaths caused regular damage to roads. He also listed a series of other reasons for the poor status of roads with the suggestion that coordination between different departments could minimise the damage.
On the Strategic Road Development Project (SRDP) planned with a cost of ₹23,000 crore as part of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s vision to make Hyderabad a global city, the Minister said that ₹2,631 crore was already released for the first phase of the project and the work was about to be taken up after completion of the tender process. Besides, all needs of the citizens and other development activities should be taken up on priority basis to transform the city.
Mr. Nageswara Rao said the Centre had assured to release of ₹1,400 crore funds for taking up elevated corridors at L.B. Nagar, Uppal and Aram Ghar junctions following the Chief Minister taking up the matter with the Centre. Similarly, the development of radial roads would be taken up with ₹560 crore.
