Hyderabad: Locals want freedom from traffic woes

Vivekananda Nagar (Ward 122) is one of the busiest and jam-packed divisions in Kukatpally Zone, when it comes to traffic. With 54,115 voters the ward covers major areas like Venkat Rao Nagar, Sri Krishna Nagar, Bagh Ameer and Vivekananda Nagar.

This unreserved women UR (W) division has been represented by corporator M Laxmi Bai since 2016. She had won on the TRS ticket with 10,715 votes against the nearest rival Madhavaram Roja Devi (TDP) who received 5,445 votes. But this time, a new face has been fielded by the TRS, Madhavaram Roja Devi. The main contest is slated to be between Roja Devi of TRS and U Vidhya Kalpana of BJP. While Sruthi Uppala is contesting as an independent.

As the ward is located in the centre of northwestern part of the city, the most vital issue in this ward is lack of connecting link roads to various localities such as Allwyn Colony, Balanagar and Shapur Nagar. The commuters have no other options but to use internal roads to reach their destinations which is causing severe hardships.

According to residents, as even heavy vehicles ply on the internal roads, they get damaged regularly. Further, the residents allege that the corporator Laxmi Bai never visited the ward and took initiative to resolve the issue. "To ease the traffic chaos, GHMC has failed to lay the link road towards Allwyn Colony, Balanagar and Shapur. The officials had promised that the road would be developed but till date no action has been taken," said Sai Teja, a resident of Vivekananda Nagar.

"The main problem in this ward is traffic jams, as there is no proper link road and the commuters are using internal roads to travel and due to that roads are getting damaged. Several times we raised the issue with GHMC officials but all in vain," said Naveen Rao, a resident of Vivekananda Nagar.