Hafeezpet road: A distant dream

Hyderabad: About 2,000 families and thousands of techies each day bear the brunt of constant digging of roads, lack of street lights, unguarded open drains and construction debris in the stretch running parallel from Hi-tech City to Hafeezpet Railway station.

Residents are claiming that the 100ft road keeps dragging, leading to traffic chaos at the parking lot of the apartments. Thousands of techies use this road to commute to Hitech City, surrounded by high-rise apartments like Mahindra Lifespaces Ashvita, Indu Fortune fields and Prajay Megapolis. 

Despite having given several representations to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB), residents allege that officials from both organisations have refused to claim responsibility, instead conveniently passing the buck from one to the other.

Kalyan Aluri, a software engineer said, “No sooner is the road laid, the administration digs it up. Previously it was the HMWSSB which was working on it and now it's Transco. With very little time left for the arrival of the monsoons, this road will be in a total mess if works are not expedited. While the sanction was made for a full road, half of it was built and inaugurated.” Furthermore, there is an unguarded open drain that has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes, not to mention the construction debris that has been lying unattended for years.

Associations of several residential apartments have advised residents to take precautions, “Due to unsettled dust from Hafeezpet to Indu Fortune Fields, because of bad roads and heavy traffic, kids and senior citizens are suffering from dust allergy and this could cause asthma. Doctors who own houses in this vicinity, have been cautioned to avoid asthma build up in the near future,” said Abhinay Sinha.

Since part of this stretch is under Kukatpally constituency and another in Serilingampally, residents allege lack of co-ordination between both inter and intra department officials. Furthermore, they also allege new encroachments in the vicinity.

Officials said that underwater pipeline laying works are frequently causing damages to roads. However, HMWSSB officials have given a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to GHMC to undertake restoration work. A GHMC official said that they would not carry out the restoration due to the repair work that still remained.