After sanitation, Hyderabad about to put back in infrastructure front

Hyderabad: The city has plunged 14 positions from rank 23 to rank 37 in the current year's Swachh Survekshan rankings which were declared this year is now struggling to execute its flagship mega projects in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits. The lethargy of civic staff, despite sending false reports to the Centre to attain better ranking in Swachh Survekshan, it could not make it in the list of top 25 competing with 4,320 other cities across the country. Surprisingly, the corporation authorities made a grand announcement claiming that Hyderabad achieved rank 13 in the ‘Best Sustainable City’ category while losing in cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation aspects. But the fact of the matter was Hyderabad achieved rank 13 competing with 48 cities with over 40 lakh population was only on the revenue front that too based on reports and citizen feedback given by the GHMC staff themselves. The city is now not in a strong financial position to execute its ongoing and future infrastructure project as all financial institutions have been shying away.

With only Rs 220 crore remaining with the civic authorities in the funds earmarked for the completion of SRDP, officials are said to be worried about the ongoing city infrastructure projects. The corporation has already spent about Rs 3,000 for the project, which includes Rs 1,000 crore municipal bonds and about Rs 1,750 crore funds raised in the form of Rupee Term Loan (RTL).

Previously, the municipal administration and urban development department issued a GO No 763 to raise loans worth Rs 2,500 crore. It also hired a consultant - SBI Capital Markets Limited - to raise RTL loans with 0.1 per cent fee. The corporation authorities claimed that amounts were raised in 10 to 12 instalments as per the requirement of the GHMC. The lockdown I and II helped the civic authorities to put all pending projects on fast track and make rapid progress. It completed flyovers and underpasses at several locations under the flagship programme.

Highly placed sources in the corporation said out of the total Rs 25,000 crore required for the SRDP project, the civic body took up skyway works worth Rs 6,000 in phase I. The civic body managed to execute projects worth Rs 3,000 crore raised through municipal bonds, RTL loans and GHMC's treasury. And now with only Rs 220 crore remaining in the funds raised through RTL loans, the corporation would have to depend on the state government for the budgetary allocation, as no financial institution is coming forward to lend money for infrastructure projects.

A senior GHMC official on condition of anonymity told Deccan Chronicle that town planning and engineering officials disclosed the issue in a recent review meeting. He said there was no way to go ahead with the ongoing projects unless the state government came to their rescue. The official said with the available funds, GHMC could complete the right hand side flyover and underpass at LB Nagar Junction apart from flyovers at Shaikpet, Bahadurpura and Owaisi Junction. However, he said that the steel bridge project at Nalgonda X Roads, Indira Park-VST skyway and other pending flyovers in western part of the city would come to a grinding halt if the state government did not come to the corporation's rescue.