Commuters have to pay user charges if SRDP at KBR Park is executed

Hyderabad: The revised Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP) at KBR National Park in Jubilee Hills, along with a tunnel, is not financially viable, but the state government is moving forward with the project. If implemented, it will place a burden on commuters in the form of a user fee as building the tunnel would push up the cost to Rs. 2,000 crore, a GHMC official stated.

According to officials, the SRDP at KBR Park junction was supposed to be completed at a cost of Rs 322.92 crore. They said that the tunnel if built will face recurring costs for maintaining ventilation and drainage as it is located downstream of the Banjara Hills.

Under the SRDP, the government proposed in 2015 to develop six flyovers around the KBR Park, which involved the felling of over 1,300 trees for road widening. To enable this, it proposed modifying the eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) and reducing the park's pathway to between three and 29.8 metres from its boundary, down from the current 25 to 35 metres.

After a public hearing on the draft notification, the Union ministry of environment and forests cleared the proposal five years later, in 2020, while an expert committee of the ministry sought a detailed report.

The Centre stated that the GHMC should refrain from felling trees within the park's first boundary wall since they were within the ESZ, but those outside the second boundary wall were not.

In light of this, GHMC officials modified the plan and decided to build four flyovers at the KBR junction — at the Jubilee Hills checkpoint junction (level two), Road No. 45 junction (level one), Maharaja Agrasen intersection (Road No. 12) and Cancer Hospital junction (Road No. 10). For the endeavour, the corporation must relocate 800 trees.

The government then insisted on building a tunnel, which would increase the project manifold, sources said.