Hyderabad: Hilltop dargah rampway delayed for 6 months

Pahadi Shareef: Even this year, the devout attending the annual Urs of famous hilltop dargah of Pahadi Shareef, home to shrine of Hazrath Syedna Baba Sharfuddin Saheb Qibla Soharvardi, will have to climb all the 360 stairs, as the much touted ramp work is likely to take another six-months to complete.

The CC road ramp works which were marked to be completed before this year's annual Urs to be held in April are further delayed due to non-release of funds by the authorities.

On Tuesday, TS Wakf Board chairman Mohammed Saleem, along with in-charge CEO Mohammed Qasim, Revenue department and other officials, visited Dargah Pahadi Shareef and inspected the construction works of CC road ramp. Later, he acknowledged that due to the lack of budgetary funds the works were going on at a slow pace. "We hope that the amount will be released as early as possible and the ramp works will be completed within next six months", he added.

He also said that government of Telangana has sanctioned an amount of Rs 19.6 crore for the construction of ramp, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is keenly interested in development of Dargah and AIMIM Floor leader and Chandrayangutta MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi made efforts for the construction of ramp, he added.

Only `1.4 cr released till now

According to Sai Kiran AE, TSEWIDC (Telangana State Education Women and Infrastructure Development Corporation) around 6 months back a bill of on-going works of an amount of Rs 4 crore were given to TSWB chairman, but only Rs 1.4 crore were released and remaining amount has not been yet released. The works were being delayed due to not releasing of amount. "If the amount was released the works would be completed on time," he added

Dargah custodian Peerzada Syed Moinuddin recalled that in his earlier inspection Mohammed Saleem said that the ramp would be completed by March before the annual Urs which would be held in April.

Speaking to The Hans India, Peerzada Syed Moinuddin said that to ease the efforts of devout who climb 360 steps to reach hilltop and perform ziyarath, a representation was made by MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi for taking up works of ramp, which was sanctioned in 2017. "The works were started last year but faced technical difficulties prompting to change the plan. But when the works were resumed it hit roadblock due to lack of funds this time. Not even half of the works were completed", he said.

He said on an average daily around 300 pilgrims climb hilltop to perform ziyarath and thousands would be attending the annual Urs, most of them, particularly elderly find it difficult to reach the hilltop, added Moinuddin.