Hyderabad: One of the Telangana government’s most ambitious projects — Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP) — which started amid fanfare and inauguration did not see much progress in 2017.
Before the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, the project seemed to be in full swing with a series of inaugurations by the municipal administration and urban development minister K. Taraka Rama Rao, city MPs and MLAs.
However, the project could not make much progress from 2016 onwards. Officials in the corporation claimed that the delay was due to lack of co-ordination between town planning and engineering wings.
Interestingly, the civic body managed to complete the underpass at Ayyappa Society which would be inaugurated in 2018.
The corporation planned to construct SRDP in four packages. The first had construction of multi-level flyovers and grade separators at six junctions, including widening and strengthening of the existing road around the KBR Park.
The SRDP at KBR Junction got into controversy since its inception as tree-cutting issued resulted in outrage from citizens and NGOs.
The issue finally landed before the National Green Tribunal where the state government was asked to seek permission from the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change to take appropriate action.
This included publishing a revised draft notification pertaining to Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ). The project remained on paper.
Another proposal to construct grade separators and flyovers at Uppal and Rasoolpura junctions under package III had been stalled due to land acquisition problems. At Uppal Junction, the Survey of India refused to part with 20 acres and at Rasoolpura, for acquisition of 1.62 acres, the corporation had to seek the permission of ministry of home affairs.
With the work stalled at two packages, the GHMC started construction of underpasses and flyovers under package II, where minimal property acquisition was required.
However, the corporation started only construction of flyovers and underpasses in such stretches where there would be requirement of land and property acquisition.
