Road widening : GHMC gets cracking to acquire properties

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is focusing on land acquisition of properties for road-widening works and also for works taken up under Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP) and others.

As part of this, the Town Planning officials have been identifying properties that need to be acquired and issuing notices to the concerned property holders, besides holding negotiations with those whose properties are vital for the implementation of project works.

According to officials, the land acquisition process has been completed for Bahadurpura flyover, Owaisi Junction flyover, Khajaguda road, link road from Bapu Ghat to Attapur bridge, Zohra Bee Dargah to Rakshapuram etc.

For the SRDP projects like Chanchalguda- Saidabad-IS Sadan road, Shastripuram road and Aramghar to Zoo Park, the land acquisition process is still in progress.

To expedite the land acquisition process in a time-bound manner, the government has last year appointed GHMC Commissioner DS Lokesh Kumar as special collector.

In the last five years, 89 roads were taken up for widening, of which, the works of 55 roads were completed after acquiring 1,805 properties. Similarly, 1,100 properties for SRDP works, 192 properties for link roads and 511 properties for road-widening were acquired.

While the new Land Acquisition Act and increase in land compensation value proved troublesome for the civic body to acquire lands, the introduction of Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) policy has given teeth to the GHMC in acquiring properties hassle-free. With TDR policy in place, many property holders were willing to part with their lands and obtaining TDR certificates in lieu of cash compensation.

For the land acquisition of 16,95,449 sq yards (350 acre), the civic body has issued 864 TDR, of which, 533 were for widening works, 128 for SRDP works, 49 for link roads, 41 for nala-widening and 77 for beautification of tanks.