Unfinished roads posing grave danger

Roads in several places in city were dug seven months ago for laying pipelines to give water supply connections. They have not yet been restored

​Hyderabad: Restoration works of the roads dug for Urban Mission Bhagiratha since December last year yet remain pending at various places across the city. Local residents from these areas expressed their resentment as the roads were damaged further during recent rains.

The division of the restoration works between Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) creates further problems.

Seven months after roads were dug up, they were not restored in 48 divisions across the city. The city roads were dug for providing 1 lakh drinking water pipeline connections to citizens under the Urban Mission Bhagirathascheme. But they are still in restoration stage. Roads in areas like Hill Colony in Vanasthalipuram, Kapra, Uppal, Kukatpally, Patancheruvu, etc. were further damaged due to the recent rains.

Local residents have been expressing their disappointment ever since the roads were dug. Y Ganesh (32), residing in Vanasthalipuram for the last 3 years,has said that he expected such a delay the moment he observed roads being dug.

Another resident from Kapra said though most of the roads were restored, a stretch of 1 km is left broken. ``There is a stretch of a kilometre which is just left untouched ever since it was dug. It is a one lane road with half of it dug up. Traffic sometimes halts if a heavy vehicle passes by,” he said.
While roads dug for 100 mm and 250 mm diameter pipelines are to be restored by HMWS&SB, restoration works for roads dug for 300 mm diameter pipeline was taken up by GHMC.

The water board Chief General Manager Vijay Kumar Reddy said on Friday that most of the restoration works under HMWS& SB have been completed. Some stretches in Kapra, Uppal, etc. are remaining incomplete which will be completed soon, he said.

He further said the 1 Km stretch dug in Kapra, which comes under the water board, has been getting delayed due to the monsoon and will be completed in the next week. He also added that roads dug for 100 mm diameter pipelines are not covered as the laying of pipelines will resume after monsoon.

While the water board claims that only two kilometres of a stretch remains unrepaired, most of the roads out of the 1300 km dug remain damaged. Highly places sources from the water board said that about 70 kmsof road is remaining untouched after they were dug for laying pipelines. While most of it comes under GHMC as they were for 300 mm diameter pipelines, the GHMC officials could not be contacted.

By: Sasidhar Kocharlakota