Koti subway turns into cesspool

Koti: Even a light shower is enough for the Koti subway to get dirty. Water seeps in and the subway turns into a pool. Constructed two decades ago, the subway has not become popular with the denizens and a few years ago, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) allotted the subway to the book sellers.

Lack of maintenance and apathy shown by Hyderabadis has turned the subway into a dirty place who no one wants to visit. A bookseller said, “There were 45 stalls but now just a handful remain as people do not want to come here as the place is dirty. After we were shifted here from the footpath, we have lost customers.”

“Drainage water seeps in and there are no electricity as a result people have shunned the place,” says Omer a bookseller. Pramod Deshpande, a resident of Sultan Bazaar says, “People in Hyderabad do not have the culture of using the subway. If they did, the place would have been maintained and even the booksellers would have made a living. In cities such as Mumbai people use the subway.”

BY MM Farooqui