Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Road users taken for granted

— PHOTOS: P. V. SIVAKUMAR

Sad state of affairs: The potholes on the main road at Mettuguda after the rain. (Right) Traffic moving at a snail’s pace owing to the ‘development works’ taken up on the Alugadda Bavi- Mettuguda stretch.

HYDERABAD: If there is one road stretch that exemplifies the bureaucratic functioning of different government departments leading to great inconvenience to public, then it would be the Alugadda Bavi – Mettuguda stretch. The less than one kilometre road stretch has become a nightmare for people as traffic comes to a grinding halt invariably during peak hours, ironically because of the developmental works being taken up.

The water works department took up laying of a water pipe line thereby rendering almost half of the available carriageway useless for road users, even before the road widening work on the other side is continuing.

The road on the other side, towards Alugadda Bavi has been widened, but the widened portion has not been brought into use.

“Travelling on this road has become extremely difficult. Why couldn’t the water works department take up the work after the widened portion is brought to use. Or why couldn’t the civic officials advise the water works to take up the work later”, K. Rajagopal Reddy, a regular commuter fumes.

Mr. Reddy’s argument does hold water. All it needed was to wait for sometime to start the pipe laying works so that the road laying process on the widened portion was completed. It would have certainly made sense.

But then the moot point is the lack of coordination between the civic authorities and the water works department and caught in between the two departments is the traffic police.

“With no other parallel road network being present between Tarnaka and Secunderabad, there is heavy rush on this road. It certainly is a problem managing the traffic flow”, a traffic policeman on the spot mutters helplessly. The crucial link between Eastern side of Hyderabad to Secunderabad is clogged beyond imagination.

The road stretch forms part of the inner ring road that is sought to be widened not just for facilitating the traffic going or coming from Uppal side. It is also on the proposed Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) route.

The problem is worse confounded with another government department, the South Central Railway (SCR) refusing permission to the water board authorities to lay the pipeline through their land which is marked for road widening.

With the SCR and the GHMC locking their horns over the surrender of the railway land and the issue being a matter ending in the High Court, the water works department chose the easy way out. They began laying the pipeline on the existing road, little realising that once the road is widened, the newly laid pipeline would be right in the middle of the expanded road in future.

Assuming that there is water leakage in future, repairs would have to be taken up right in the middle of the expanded road in future.

That only means that the Mettuguda – Alugaddavi stretch is in for more trouble in future too. While the road users burn hundreds of kilo litres of fuel because of the traffic jams, the authorities concerned continue to turn a blind eye to public suffering.

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