Hyderabad: Old City comes to a standstill

Hyderabad: Battered by the relentless rains in the past five days, several parts of the city, especially the southern parts, have been affected badly bringing forth the failure in disaster management and loopholes in infrastructure development.

Most of the roads in Old City areas suffered heavy damage, and the roads near the new flyover have become worst. Besides the damaged roads, the uncleared garbage mixed with sewerage was seen overflowing onto the inundated roads and colonies.

Several areas like Malakpet, Chaderghat, Santosh Nagar, Chandrayanagutta, Falaknuma, Shahalibanda, Talabkatta, Charminar, Bahadurpura, Karwan, Nampally etc. are the most affected areas in city compounding the civic issues in the areas. The potholed ridden roads have become dangerous to commute due to inundation.

"Due to flyover construction works in Santosh Nagar the road has turned into a worst condition with several potholes and huge traffic jam," said Mohammed Imtiaz, a motorist. The road at Chaderghat lower bridge is severely damaged with deep potholes which is creating difficulties for the motorists," said Rajeshwar.

According to GHMC, it identified about 3,000 potholes on roads in city under the Comprehensive Road Maintenance Programme (CRMP). About 50 per cent of potholes have been filled up by the civic body and remaining work would be completed in the next 2-3 days. "Monsoon Emergency Teams and the GHMC Maintenance wing are carrying out the pothole repair works," said an official.

Mohammed Ahmed, the TDP Greater Hyderabad minority wing vice-president, said that several complaints were registered online for sanitation in areas and even the people were trolling GHMC on twitter, but the complaints were not heeded. He said the workers were behaving irresponsibly while delivering their duties and no sanitation drive was being carried out by them. "Why is the GHMC neglecting their works in Old City?" asks Abdul Rahman, a social activist.