Hyderabad: Official laxity, fund crisis leave Charminar project in the lurch
Hyderabad: Too many chefs may spoil the broth, but what if no chef actually gets to cook? That is the situation at the Charminar Pedestrianisation Project (CPP) which has been dragging along for a decade now.
It has three officials at the top and none of them has been empowered to do anything. GHMC Khairatabad zonal commissioner, Musharraf Faruqui, is the project director but the responsibility is shared between Charminar zonal commissioner, B. Srinivas Reddy, and GHMC director, planning, K. Srinivas Rao.
No one reports to anyone among the three, and junior officers do not report to the trio. None of them has the power to allocate funds from their kitties. The project does not have designated engineers from the projects wing but, surprisingly, engineers from the maintenance wing were deputed to take care of day-to-day activities .
And therefore the project crawls. Nothing has been done for about a year. The only activity has been to fix hydraulic bollards near the Charminar to prevent vehicles from entering the pedestrianisation zone.
Work on key components like facade development, construction of the Salar Jung bridge to shift the hawkers, special lighting to attract tourists, among others, are still pending.
This apart, neither the electricity department nor the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board has responded to the requirements of the CPP. Despite repeated proposals from the GHMC, neither body has responded to shift utilities like electricity cables, drinking water and sewerage lines away from the CPP area.
As no one is empowered to do anything, there is a reluctance to take responsibility. Authorities said the project lacked budgetary allocation. None of the three top officials can finalise tenders to hand out work to the agencies.
The upshot of all this that commuters are facing severe inconvenience due to traffic congestion and lack of parking spaces and others. Asked about the situation, an official said the budgetary allocation would be made in the next financial year.
