Finally, HMRL cancels tenders to set up kiosks on pavements

Hyderabad: Responding to the news article published in Deccan Chronicle, Municipal Administration and Urban Development principal secretary issued a memo to Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited pertaining to cancellation of tenders to set up kiosks on pavements.

Mr Arvind Kumar stated that the issue of “footpath/open spaces along road/roadside margins being used for the purpose other than walking and that too commercialisation by one of the government departments such as HMRL was being viewed seriously”. The memo stated that all efforts/actions in this regard by HMRL such as calling for tenders or any other action towards using footpaths for any other purposes must be put on hold immediately and further, no action whatsoever should be initiated without the prior specific sanction from the GHMC/HRDCL in writing. This was outside the scope of HMRL and was highly objectionable, he said adding that any tender if existing towards this must also be cancelled at once.

The government acted within 24 hours after DC published the news report with the title ‘HMRL plans to further eat up its pavements’ in which it was reported that metro rail had decided to recover every penny it had spent on beautification of metro stations. One way of doing that was setting up kiosks and leasing them out for commercial activities. But this would further eat up the footpath space.