Railway Overbridge construction: 10,000 commuters put to hardship in Tirupati

Tirupati: Commuters facing traffic woes as National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has taken up construction of 3-km Railway Overbridge (RoB) on Chittoor-Tirupati highway from gate of the Sri Venkateswara University (SVU) to Vidya Nagar at a cost of Rs 164 crore.

The works of RoB are going on for the last six months. Every day, 10,000 commuters, on an average, from colonies located on the outskirts of the city travel to Tirupati. Especially, students and employees commute to attend colleges and offices. The contractor had closed the highway three months ago without providing an alternative service road.

Commuters are suffering due to frequent traffic jams in narrow bylanes of Vidya Nagar, LS Nagar, SVU Non-teaching Colony, Pudipatla, Cherlopalli, Perumalla Palli, Tummalagunta, Peruru and staff quarters. Even, Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) officials and city traffic police anticipating traffic jams in busy hours did not make any arrangements. The local residents brought the issue to the notice of officials concerned but there was no solution from them.

Satish, a resident of LS Nagar expressed anguish over civic officials and traffic police not responding on the issue despite submitting several representations. As a result, accidents are taking place very frequently, he stated.

K Muralidhar Reddy, a resident of Vidya Nagar said that the solution for ending traffic woes is to lay alternative service road parallel to RoB.