Hyderabad: Buses jam key roads at noon

Hyderabad: The menace of RTC buses at changeover points in six major places in the city is causing heavy traffic jams even during off-peak hours. At all the six locations on major corridors, hundreds of buses are parked between 12 pm and 3 pm besides roads in one to three lanes.

Some of the worst congestion is at Mehdipatnam, Koti, Secunderabad near Sangeet Junction and Rani Gunj, Afzalgunj, Dilsukhnagar and Borabanda. According to the traffic police, RTC buses make about 3,000 trips to and from Mehdipatnam and about 10,000 trips to and from Secunderabad. A proposal to shift these changeover points has been pending for five years.

At Mehdipatnam, buses are parked in the lane opposite Gottipati Towers up to Humayun Nagar police station junction in three lanes including bus-bays where the road has five lanes. This puts a burden on traffic from Tolichowki to Sarojini Hospital. Buses are also parked regularly near Rythu Bazaar.

In Secunderabad, RTC uses many places for alighting and as changeover points. Buses are parked from Chilkalguda junction to Rail Nilayam junction, from Rail Nilayam Saibaba temple to Sangeeth junction, at Secunderabad Railway Station and on Boiguda Road.

RTC makes nearly 10,000 trips from and through Secu-nderabad. This causes traffic jams during off-peak hours at Rail Nilayam, Chilkalguda junction, Secunderabad Rail-way Station and Gandhi Hos-pital Road. Parked buses are creating congesting roads at the Borabanda-Sanathnagar road, Afzal Gunj-MGBS road, Dilsukhnagar on the Vijayaw-ada highway and at Koti.

Traffic DCP A. V. Ranganath says that shifting changeover points is under consideration by the traffic department, RTC and GHMC. “We are holding joint meetings and reviews on the issue and on March 25, we will have a meeting along with railway officials. Our target is to shift at least 25 per cent of buses to other places to reduce the burden on key corridors. We have already shifted 1,100 trips from Mehdipatnam,” he said.

He said that the development of the main road at Secunder-abad Railway Station (Boigu-da side) will reduce the burden on roads in Secunderabad. “We are going to request the Railways to develop the road under bridge on the Boiguda side which can assist in developing a new road and buses can move around the railway station,” he said.

Executive director of RTC’s GHMC zone, A. Purushotham Naik, said that the RTC had already constituted committees with RTC, GHMC and Traffic officials at divisional level.

"RTC DVMs, depot managers, traffic ACPs, GHMC's EEs and town planning officials are on the committees," he said. He said that the buses parked at Mehdipatnam will be shifted to Gachibowli, Kalimandir, Aramgarh and Rajendernagar.

"Similarly, we will shift buses from Dilsukhnagar to L B Nagar, Srinivas Colony, NGOs Colony and B N Reddy Nagar. We are planning to shift the buses parked in Secunderabad to Uppal and ECIL. The buses at Koti will be shifted to L B Nagar," he said.