The stretch itself is narrow. So narrow that it hardly facilitates the smooth flow of traffic from opposite sides. And then, it runs into a railway gate where as the locals say, once in every three trips, you end up waiting long for the trains to pass before managing to cross over.
From cycles and motor cycles to cars and min-trucks all end up choking the road on either side of the level crossing at Kandikal Gate in the old city every time a train is scheduled to pass. The wait turns out to be prolonged at the manual gates and even once the train pass and the gates are lifted, it takes quite sometime before the traffic clears.
“It is so frustrating stuck in the jam here at the gate and again having to struggle to get to the other side once the gate is lifted. Either going or returning, each day I end up in these jam,” says an angry Jehangir Basha, who has a shop at Gowlipura.
This stretch connects Chandrayangutta, certain parts of Falaknuma with Chatrinaka, Gowlipura, Sultan Shahi and further down towards Charminar. Given its location, the road has high volume of traffic flowing on either side for the entire day. “From morning to late evening, long line of vehicles is a common sight in front of the level crossing here,” says Maqsood-ul-Hasan, a businessman.
However, the travails of the commuters here could end soon with things finally moving positively over a Road over Bridge (RoB) proposed few years ago. The project which got entangled in delays for various reasons could actually see work starting in next few months.
For the four-lane Rs.27 crore project, the railways have approved the design and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) plans to take up the work at the earliest.
“We have asked the traffic police to divert the traffic to facilitate the work on the RoB,” an official said.
