Warangal: Yet another year goes by without any semblance of growth

Warangal: Warangal is all set to usher in New Year 2020. And a peek back at the year 2019 certainly gives no semblance of near absolute development in Warangal. A troll in and around the city leaves you flabbergasted and disenchanted with the kind of roads and infrastructure it has. The pace of developmental works that grounded this year gives an impression of a tortoise competing with a snail in a running competition. Aspiring to be a Smart and Heritage City, Warangal continues to be the same as it was in the past few years ago with awful roads and infrastructure.

The city has a whopping Rs 2,000 crore at its disposal allocated under various heads – Smart Cities Mission, Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).

It's been more than three years since Warangal was selected for the Smart Cities Mission with a vision to transform it a livable, clean, green, inclusive, modern, safe and citizen-friendly and well-governed, however development remains a far cry for the denizens. The Rs 2,861-crore Smart City Proposal (SCP) is yet to take a shape.

The Rs 553-crore AMRUT scheme funding that was aimed at providing drinking water to all the households in the city is yet to bear fruits. Bhadrakali Lake Foreshore beautification and Revival and Development of Warangal Fort taken up under HRIDAY project are also yet to be completed. The fate of Thousand Pillars temple development is also unknown. Development of Jain Teerthankara idols on Aggalaiah Gutta is the only solace, however, it's yet to be thrown open for the people.

The work on Rs 50-crore Kaloji Kalakshetram that stranded mid-way is yet to be completed. The all-important second road over bridge (ROB) near Fathima Nagar is also a nonstarter. On the other hand, denizens continue to wait for the Master Plan-2041. Even though Kakatiya Urban Development Authority (KUDA) had announced to roll out the Master Plan several times, it remained as a promise.

The Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) is yet to get a building of its own. There was no major change in the fate of MGM Hospital, the lifeline of north Telangana, as it continues grapple with staff crunch and lack of equipment.

"The roads in the city are terrible, so was the traffic maintenance. The delay in releasing the Master Plan is also causing numerous problems to the people due to haphazard land use pattern," Sunkari Prashanth, the founder president of Jwala, an NGO working for the eradication of corruption, told The Hans India.