Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is caught in a dilemma over construction of footpaths in the city.
The civic body, as a part of comprehensive road maintenance (CRM), has handed over a mere 40 per cent (309.76 kms), work of laying footpaths to five private agencies which have bagged the project. However, officials claimed that it has asked the agencies to begin the works immediately and they would invite tenders subsequently to accord work orders.
Officials said under the CRM, the civic body was supposed to lay 709 km road, along with footpaths, and lane-marking simultaneously. However, the corporation did not have concrete data pertaining to the length of the footpath to be laid. However, in order to study the space available for the footpath, it has taken the one month time gap to call the second tenders for laying 100 per cent of footpaths.
Official said, as of now, they are in a dilemma with regard to inviting tenders for constructing footpaths beyond 309.76 kms and a final call would be taken after discussing the matter with the state government.
However, the civic body had earlier decided to construct 952 metres of footpaths on cement concrete white topping roads at a cost of `916.78 lakh at Uppal, Santosh Nagar, Falaknuma, Jubilee Hills, Yousufguda, Quthbullapur, Secun-derabad, Begumpet and complete them by October 31 and 70,970 metres of footpaths on BT roads in Uppal, Malakpet, Santosh Nagar, Chandraya-ngutta, Charminar, Falaknuma, Rajend-ranagar circles and complete them by October 15. However, the corporation has not even managed to complete even 10 per cent of the footpath works in any of the circles.
