Hyderabad: Road widening runs into land hurdle

Shalibanda: One of the major road widening projects in Old City from Himmatpura in Shalibanda to Doodh Bowli in Hussaini Alam, remains at a standstill. The road widening hit a road block allegedly due to delay of authorities in acquisition of about 30 properties on the stretch.

"The project is not going ahead without completely demolishing the structures on the way and some properties are pending for compensation due to lack of funds," said an officer on anonymity. The road-widening works were started in May 2016. The demolitions were started towards the end of 2017. Hardly 70 per cent of the demolition has been completed till now which was to be completed by 2018," the official pointed out.

According to GHMC's Town Planning wing report, a total of 178 properties have been acquired and 63 properties are pending in the stretch. For widening at Doodh Bowli a total of 192 properties have been acquired. Of them 108 properties are yet to be demolished. "While most of the properties were demolished, some of them are getting delayed owing to delay of compensation through cheques. Once the property owners get compensation the work on the entire stretch will be cleared for road-widening," added the official.

Speaking on the delay of works on road-widening, Mohammed Ahmed, Vice President Minority Cell, TDP, Charminar said that for the last several months there is no activity of the project. He said, "The road-widening is a hard-pressing issue, but the negligence of the civic body has left the project as a failure. It is being delayed by the authorities in acquisition of about 30 properties on the stretch."

He said that the citizens are all set for development in the area and these property owners are ready to vacate. Half of them have already vacated their properties a year back. "Recently, GHMC also served notices to the property owners to vacate for further developments and those owners who have vacated and who also submitted the documents, are yet to receive compensation amount. This shows their negligence over the developmental works in Old City," he pointed.

The project of road-widening of about 2 km stretch being undertaken by GHMC aimed to provide a better connectivity to the important localities of Shalibanda to Hussaini Alam via Fateh Darwaza, bypassing the Charminar and even Chowmohallah Palace and Murgi Chowk. Given the fact that this stretch has already been choked by vehicular movement, it has increased manifold in the recent years.