Lake beautification works not in full flow

Warangal: It’s been exactly four years since the work on the Rs 21-crore Bhadrakali Lake Foreshore development, one of the major components proposed under the National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), Centre’s ambitious project aimed at holistic development of heritage cities, had began, however, the progress of the project seems to be a case of one step forward and two steps back.

The 1.1-km-long lake front project that includes development of foreshore road, green colonnades, open-air gym, walking track, playing area, integrated hardscape lighting, parking, and promenade and landscaping was designed in such a way that reflects the Kakatiya architectural elegance to draw the tourists.

Apart from tourism point of view, the other major advantage of the 4.5-km bund-cum-road on the foreshore area is that it keeps intact the Bhadrakali Lake area which already lost huge swathes of land to encroachments, besides preventing lake from pollution.

Even though the executing agency Kakatiya Urban Development Authority (KUDA) has been putting deadlines for the completion of project, the works continue to progress at slow pace.

Although the dashboard of the Centre’s www.hridayindia.in reflects that 72 per cent of works have been completed so far, KUDA planning officer E Ajith Reddy told The Hans India: “We have completed 80 per cent of the works. We have set March 31 as the deadline for the completing remaining works.”

Explaining the reasons for delay in works, he said that project beautification includes various works that need a lot of coordination between the contracting agencies. “We told the contractors to make it happen before the new timeframe. The KUDA chairman Marri Yadava Reddy and vice-chairman N Ravi Kiran, who is also the Commissioner of Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation, are keen to complete the project as early as possible,” he said.

Meanwhile, the other projects under HRIDAY - Development work at 1000 pillar temple area, Revival and development of Fort Warangal, Rejuvenation of Padmakshi lake & Development of Jain sites on Hanamkonda hill - are also lagging behind. The Rs 1.78-crore Kazipet Dargah development is the only project that was completed under HRIDAY.