Hyderabad: In a bad setback to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, the financial agencies that have been funding the major infrastructure projects in the city have refused to release money for land acquisition.
The corporation had grand plans to expedite the ongoing Strategic Road Development Plan, and expected `160 crore for the land that would have to be acquired during the current month. But financial institutions which have sanctioned a `2,500-crore term loan (RTL) to the corporation said it is only to fund the construction work. This has put SRDP works worth `1,889.64 in jeopardy as they cannot proceed without land being acquired.
The civic body has to acquire over 500 properties in the city to construct skyways and underpasses as part of the SRDP at major junctions, including Bahadurpura, Owaisi Hospital, LB Nagar, Kamineni Hospital and Jubilee Hills Road No. 45, Botanical Garden, Kothaguda and Kondapur junction.
According to highly placed sources in the GHMC, the delay in land acquisition has temporarily halted multiple infrastructure skyway projects such as the construction of Balanagar flyover, Uppal-Ghatkesar elevated corridor and the long-pending skyway at Amberpet crossroads as the corporation is yet to acquire 1,457 properties in order to take these projects forward.
The SRDP alone requires 587 properties involving 1,58,360 square yards of land costing a whopping `1,500 crore. GHMC also has to also clear pending bills worth `160 crore. Though the government assured the corporation it would get `100 crore every month to rescue it from a financial crisis, officials claim that heavy interest rates and expenditures would leave the corporation bankrupt in less than two months.
Adding to their woes, the financial institution also shied away from funding the land acquisition fee for the infrastructure projects. A senior GHMC official on condition of anonymity told Deccan Chronicle that the commissioner D.S. Lokesh Kumar in a recent review meeting held with town planning and engineering officials has disclosed the issue. He said that there was no way to go ahead with the ongoing projects until the state government comes to their rescue.
