Pragathi Nivedana Sabha: Outer Ring Road damaged, garbage piled up at venue
Hyderabad: The mammoth Pragathi Nivedika held on Sunday severely damaged the Outer Ring Road (ORR) at several stretches. The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) officials barely took any measures to prevent vehicles, animals and the public from entering ORR from the service road after removing the metal crash barriers at 15 locations. The authorities planted mere bamboo sticks with ribbons to prevent vehicles entering into service roads from ORR at the temporary exits made for the one-day mega event. The ruling party members even demolished footpaths and removed speed breakers on service roads without obtaining any permission from the HMDA.
Apart from the damage caused, several tonnes of garbage has been piled up at all parking places including near the venue. According to an HMDA official, TRS was instructed to lay temporary exit routes at its own cost but without any damage to the ORR, service roads, pedestrian paths, and trees. The proposed exits had to be inspected by the HMDA officials beforehand. Signboards directing people to the venue or to the routes, would have to be erected by the party. Tractors, trolleys and other slow-moving vehicles would not be permitted on ORR and they would need to take the service roads instead. However, none of the instructions were followed, and footpaths have been damaged at several parking locations from Bongloor to Tukkuguda. Almost every speed breaker has been damaged to facilitate tractors, and trolleys.
The temporary restoration measures taken up by the HMDA after removing the crash barriers would not provide relief, rather it has been posing a grave threat to commuters travelling on ORR. This is because stray dogs or any small animal could cross the ORR anytime and that has the potential to overturn a vehicle speeding down the highway. When queried about the subject, ORR chief general manager SK. Muzaffer Imam said that everything would be restored after preparing the estimates of the damages caused. He said after preparing the damage estimates (only for metal crash barriers), the TRS party would be asked for compensation in order to carry out the repairs. He said that the private agency to which ORR had been leased would take up the road repairs.
When asked about the damage to footpaths and speed breakers on the service roads, Mr Imam said that HMDA had not accorded permission to damage them and had, in fact, asked that ramps be constructed to enter the parking area from the service road. He said that such damages would be taken into consideration and compensation would be claimed from the ruling party. Meanwhile, the public meet have left huge piles of garbage at the venue. Until 5 pm , about 30 per cent of the plastic waste was removed near the stage and the parking area. Surprisingly, a Swachh auto tipper has been spotted participating in the clean-up drive.
