Hyderabad: The Secunderabad Cantonment board hasn’t penalised contractor Laxman & Sons, despite the work period for widening the British era Picket nala having expired over 40 days ago. For widening the 100-year-old nala, which is the prime connectivity to numerous colonies, the main road was dug up at the end of February and since then the ripped-apart road has not been restored.
The narrow uneven lanes and bylanes of Vikrampuri and surrounding colonies have become main roads for hundreds of commuters travelling towards Jubilee bus stand, Secunderabad or Kharkhana. The contractor is an old customer for the SCB. The job to construct the Bapujinagar bridge was allocated to the company and work there too was delayed.
“Traffic snarls opposite Gandhian Public School have multiplied. It is the worst during working hours, this has turned the major route for Laxminagar, Vasavinagar and many other commuters. Over a lakh vehicles criss-cross these highly damaged colony internal roads.”
The road leading to Rainbow Hospital is bumpy. Rain has added to the misery of commuters with construction debris dumped there. “Residents are afraid to walk on these roads,” said Mr Amardeep Singh, a resident of Vikrampuri. The British-era culvert’s inlets and outlets weren’t taking the increasing sewer load, and it could collapse any day, according to the officials. This nala connects with Hussainsagar.
The culvert was made of stone and the passage was too small for the current heavy load, thus it was taken up for widening. The SCB has sanctioned '1.10 crore for the RCC culvert. The contractors were told to complete the work by May. When the delay was reported to the SCB authorities, a senior assistant engineer-in-charge of the project explained, “A lot of sewerage and water pipelines were found running under the culvert, of which two major pipelines belong to the local Army authorities, the job to divert the pipelines had to be sorted out with them. This caused the delay.”
