Hyderabad: GHMC has worked on a comprehensive plan in the transport sector for the projected traffic volume in the year 2041. A city’s road network length should be 20 per cent, but in Hyderabad’s case it is only about eight per cent and immediate action is required to improve the capacity of the existing road network, stated GHMC officials. A study by a private consultant on the KBR junction revealed that the total traffic volume was 2.5 lakh vehicles per day and was likely to go up to 5.5 lakh per day in 2035.
Due to traffic congestion, 32,096 litres of fuel is wasted every day as vehicles idle or crawl at traffic junctions. This results in emission of 101.87 tonne of carbon dioxide per day. If the traffic junction improvement plan is taken up, the total pollutants will come down to 47.65 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent per day, a reduction of 55. 85 per cent in pollution levels. However if the project is not taken up, total traffic is estimated to go up to 5,53,940 by 2035, resulting in pollution loads equivalent to 456.19 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent per day.
The Conservator of Forests, Hyderabad circle, also carried out an assessment of environmental loss from the felling of 1,394 trees for improving four junctions — Maharaja Agrasen Junction, KBR entrance junction, Filmnagar Junction and Road No. 45 junction — part of Phase-l of SRDP. Assuming the average age of trees to be 15 years, 5.07 tonne of accumulated carbon will be lost. But this can be compensated by taking up compensatory afforestation by planting three times the number of trees .
