Hyderabad: 10 things we wish to change in our beloved 425-year-old city in 2016

Hyderabad: Hyderabad is on the doorstep of a New Year. 2016 brings with it several hopes and it’s now a very good time to wipe the slate clean — a fresh start.

But before we decide to lose those love handles, here are a few other unsightly habits we could cut down on. How about we pledge to stop urinating in public? Please, feel obliged to hold it in. We are a country so desperate to deal with the problem we now have Gods to deter bladders. Our GHMC is mulling a Rs 500 fine on culprits but has not implemented it yet. Perhaps, it’s just the thought of accepting money from those hands which has caused a delay in enforcement. So please stop being just bladders.

Spitting too. Our roads are dirty enough and they can do well without our throats gargling out the afternoon’s paan. The Prime Minister has called for a Swachh Bharat, we could start with a swachh two feet ahead of us!

Speaking of two feet ahead, could we ask our beloved GHMC, the water board, the sewerage board, the power board, the Secunderabad Cantonment Board to stop causing these unexplained craters on our roads? West Marredpally is starting to look like a photo Nasa has just released of an orbiting moon. Why the unexplained eagerness to dig up roads that have just been recarpeted? The day is not far when we start describing the neighbourhood pothole when asked for an adjacent landmark to our addresses.

About neighbourhoods, we could do with a little less of strays. Husbands are pleading with their wives to befriend dogs on their streets as a bike-ride home late in the evening means dodging jaws and wagging tails. Want a few numbers to chew on? Sample this.

The GHMC has spent nearly Rs 40 crore of taxpayer money on the Animal Birth Control project, since 2009. But a whopping 40,000 dog bites are still being reported from the city. Then, there are pigs, mosquitoes, rats the size of cats and rodents that will make Darwin reach for his notes. Which brings us to the next topic of notes of a different sort — currency.

Autowallahs must stop basing prices on weather conditions, traffic congestion, time of day, their mood etc. For a city trying to attract the world to come an invest... we could do with some three-wheeled discipline! Let’s also discuss garbage collection.

Change can happen only if civic sense prevails among Hyderabadis and officials perform their duty.

1. United we pee: Pee not in public but in toilets

DC wants this to be stopped in the New Year Peeing in public is the great leveler in Hyderabad. From men in Mercs to the auto-rickshaw driver, all are united before the wall as they unzip and let fly. We fervently wish that 2016 will see fewer men urinating in public view.

And the men’s excuse that they just can’t hold it in doesn’t cut mustard. What about the women, guys? Learn from them. Not only is it disgraceful and unhygienic, we don’t care to see public flashers at every corner. GHMC of course is not bothered to impose the Rs 500 fine it is empowered to slap incontinent men with. And while it has installed a few makeshift toilets in upmarket Jubilee Hills and other select places, public peeing has not stopped.

Exasperated local residents have tried every trick in the book to stop the menace, from hanging slippers (as a warning that they will be beaten with the footwear if found transgressing), to “commit no nuisance” signs to even pictures of deities, but the pathetic practice of pissing in public continues unabated. Meanwhile, most public urinals in Hyderabad are either defunct, in a horrible state or have disappeared.

And while everyone wants a public urinal, they don’t want any near their homes, shops or offices. In fact, many public urinals were demolished or made defunct by nearby house/building owners since these apparently devalued their properties.

2. Spit free city: If you have to spit, swallow it

This is much more common than public peeing. From roads to sidewalks to staircases in public and private buildings, the city is splattered with blood-red paan-gutka-paan masala stains. It’s not macho to spit. This is not the Wild Wild West. So stop it. Now. While people spitting while walking are bad, those who spit out of moving vehicles, often splattering bystanders, should have a separate hell only for them.

Though post-spitting fights (not people spitting at each other obviously) aren’t uncommon, a campaign on social media, including Facebook, hasn’t made much of a difference. “There are many who spit while driving a car or out of a vehicle. One of the most annoying things people is spit out of the window while driving; this is just too rude...what if the spit hits a motorcyclist or another vehicle?” asks a Hyderabad traffic cop. Pradeep Nanavati has suggested on Facebook that a '500 fine be imposed for smoking or spitting on public roads. Though GHMC has powers to impose penalties, no one has been booked.

Interestingly, when these serial spitters go abroad, you will never catch them in the act, lest they are fined or jailed (please try it in Singapore the next time you are there and see what follows).

3. Meter pe chalo: Autowallahs must go by the meter

There are the underworld dons, and then there are the autowallahs. Both are masters of extortions. And while common folks are not on the radar of the dons, we can’t escape the latter. Auto drivers charging exorbitant rates has become so normal that when someone actually goes by the meter we think something is seriously wrong. The government rates and meters are not for this intrepid lot who are a law by themselves. And don’t even think about making a scene about the fare, no matter how unfair it is. You might as well walk.

With commuters these days often approaching the police for help, autowallahs recently have eased up a little, but it’s negligible. It is not up to the commuter, but the auto driver to decide whether he wants to go to a particular destination or not. Short distances are usually avoided, and when they do oblige, they demand '40-50, even more. And if it is early morning or late night, they insist on half return. We hope that in 2016, auto drivers will take a more humane and tourist friendly approach and ply as per government fixed rates.

4. Foul smell: No dumping of garbage on roads

In 2016, we don’t want to wake up and find a bagful of garbage left in front of our front doors or under our cars, or even on the roadside. Rich or poor, educated or illiterate, we thrive on getting rid of our trash where it doesn’t belong – on the road, down open manholes and in nalas. Just toss it over your compound wall, let it be someone else’s headache. The standard excuse by the citizens when caught red-handed throwing garbage on the road is that there’s no garbage bin nearby or the existing ones are already overflowing.

Though the garbage collectors on tri-cycles come to our doorsteps, there are those who feel paying Rs 30-50 per month should be avoided. After all, getting rid of the garbage is only a matter of a discreet drop on the road or at someone else’s premises. While GHMC tried to curb this menace by levying a fine for littering in public place, it stopped this drive mid-way like it has for so many others. We hope that 2016 will see us not only stopping dumping our trash on the road but also segregating our waste as it is meant to be. And here’s hoping that officials come up with a plan to clear the footpaths of encroachments so that we can safely walk without running the risk of stepping into something foul.

5. Give it a break: Check digging of roads, overflowing drainage

Remember the Disney cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarves? There’s a song that the dwarves sing… “We dig, dig, dig…” That unfortunately is the motto of our civic agencies. We would like to take this opportunity to tell the gentlefolk at GHMC, Water Board, SCB, the power utilities and Discoms that enough is enough. Stop behaving like cartoon characters and leave our roads alone.

Not only do these agencies dig up the roads as if searching for buried treasure, they then commit the cardinal sin of not restoring the road after their job is one. The ultimate sufferers are always the road users, who not only get shaken, rattled and rolled while driving over these broken roads, some unsuspecting souls even fall into open ditches regularly.

It is a rare sight in Hyderabad to see even a kilometre-long stretch without a pothole or one that has been restored properly after being dug up. While GHMC is the main culprit as it is the agency that gives permission and has the responsibility to monitor or carry out proper restoration of dug-up roads, the Water Board, with its own set of rules, has gained the dubious distinction of digging up roads immediately after they have been re-carpeted.

Quite often one gets the feeling that GHMC is only too happy to allow the government and private agencies to dig up roads so that the civic body can spend tax payers’ money again and again for recarpeting. If the power utilities keep digging up the roads in the name of underground cabling, the Water Board has another way of damaging roads. The drains are so poorly maintained that they overflow and the sewerage water continuously washed away the bituminous layer of the road. We hope that officials wake up in 2016 and at least try and coordinate with each other to provide better roads.

6. No one is Rossi: Bikers zig zag without thinking

The Rs 37 crore in fines collected by the Hyderabad traffic police in 2015 has come from our own pockets. We have been involved in over 2,200 road accidents, killing nearly 400 people and have injured more than 2,000. That’s quite a rap sheet. But Hyderabadis can’t seem to shake of their need for speed. Bikers zig zag through traffic while four-wheeler drivers don’t think twice before overtaking from the left. And the less said about jumping red lights the better. And of course, we don’t know what helmets are for. Who needs them anyway?

And then there are those who can’t be seen restrained by seat belts. As deputy commissioner of police (Hyderabad Traffic) A.V. Ranganath rightly puts it, “Following traffic rules is all about civilisation and being civilised.” It is high time that Hyderabadis started respecting the law and we hope that motorists stick to the straight and narrow in 2016 as far as road rules are concerned.

7. Let the wall be: Do not spoil walls with posters

We don’t have walls in this city. We have readymade billboards for political parties. Especially when elections are nearing. In 2016, we sincerely hope that the politicians leave our walls alone. Slogans and posters are not street art. And with the Metro Rail pillars coming up, the parties have got extra wall space to plaster their posters. It was only during the tenure of former chief election commissioner T.N. Seshan that political parties left the walls alone. That intrepid official had threatened to blacklist parties and disqualify candidates if found to be defacing walls. Unfortunately after Mr Seshan left, things have gone back to square one.

Though defacing walls is an offence, the civic authorities rarely take action barring when the High Court steps in and asks them to remove hoardings, cut-outs, posters and bill boards from public places that have been put up by parties without permission.

8. Give some space: Better parking skills

Parking space. It’s now almost as important a resource as access to the Internet. As we speak, the GHMC is considering several automated parking lots in the city but we seem to have found a way to ruin the system — with bad parking.

Take the example of a reader who got stuck in an unmanned lot near the Paradise circle. An absolutely insensitive driver had parked right behind his car, in an illegal space, trapping the law-abiding citizen for an epic nine hours. He had to wait until well past dusk to retrieve his car. In fact, the lot was finally cleared with help of personnel from nearby shops who had noticed the frantic, loud honking by hapless motorists.

9. Control bow-wow: Stray dogs need to be controlled by GHMC

In 2015, we have run stories about the GHMC’s Animal Birth Control project, the crores that have been spent on sterilizing strays, how they migrate to the city in search of better prospects (dumped food by restaurants etc.) and even how the crafty canines disappear the moment they get a whiff of the dog catching squad. We are trying to say that the stray dog menace is serious.

From 2009 till date the GHMC has spent nearly Rs 40 crore on ABC –Animal Birth Control project – a programme to control the stray dog population by sterilizing them. But the population of stray dogs is only going up with official estimates putting the figure at six lakh.

While most Hyderabadis feel that the GHMC has got the ABC wrong, the standard reply from the GHMC veterinary wing officials is that strays from neighbouring districts migrate to the city along with labourers. Also, over 40,000 cases of dog bites are reported every year at the Institute of Preventive Medicine, and thousands more at private clinics. There’s also a serious pig menace is parts of the city and stray cattle are back on the street hours after officials pick them up.

And while GHMC spends crores of rupees trying to control the mosquito menace, citizens spend more to guard themselves from mosquitoes. Deccan Chronicle hopes that the GHMC gets its ABC right in 2016 and is able to control the stray dog population effectively. Also maybe we can spend a little less on mosquito repellants next year.

10. Bus, stop this!: Stand in line please at stops

There’s a movie called Encroachment playing on every Hyderabad street. Picture this: The pedestrians are pushed on to the road by petty vendors occupying the pavement in a hilarious comedy; the automobiles jostle for space on the crammed road, which add to the tragedy befalling several families while the scenes at bus stops are reminiscent of mythical war movies! There’s an unannounced call of ‘charge’ and the foot soldiers are inching, swelling by the second, cutting down the space for the vehicles. Let’s admit that we just don’t like waiting for the bus in the shelters. We shun them as if they were toilets, and feel it’s our right to park ourselves on the road and crane our necks. At most points, the traffic cops have demarcated bus bays in an attempt to arrest this anomaly but a lot still needs to be done.

Let us respect each other’s space and stay within those marked for us. How about doing that thus new year! Well, forming queues to step on to the bus with dignity? We’ll perhaps keep that issue for another year.