Hyderabad: Despite Covid & polls, GHMC makes 2020 an eventful year

Despite the humongous task of sanitation to keep Covid off public places, which engaged Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) for most part of the year, the civic body has taken up several programmes, be it infrastructure, road construction, acceleration of SRDP works, Durgam Cheruvu Cable Bridge, theme parks, Construction Debris & Waste Recycling Plant, or municipal waste recycling plant. It has also scored many innovative achievements, such as setting up of Baldia Asset Protection Cell, equipping modern vehicles for transporting municipal waste and successful conduct of Greater Hyderabad elections. In a way, 2020 is a golden year in city infrastructure design, reckon its top brass.

Covid Lockdown GHMC sanitation workers, who are the frontline workers, have taken special measures in keeping the city clean and to prevent Covid-19. GHMC provided sanitizers, masks, gloves and other equipment to the workers. Further, it provided free meals to 50,000 people of daily wage workers, workers in small establishments, which were closed due to lockdown etc, in the city every day. Sheltered the homeless through 19 shelters in order to contain the spread of Covid-19, two times free meals and medical checkup provided at the shelters.

Successful conduct of elections Elections to 150 wards in the first week of December were successfully conducted despite the short time. The election, which was held by ballot box after a long time, was successfully conducted by almost 36,000, staff directly and indirectly. The Covid-19 rules were strictly adhered to and were conducted peacefully without any incidents.

Real Estate Progress The real estate sector in Greater Hyderabad has been making significant progress since the formation of Telangana State. Permits were issued for 11,024 housing projects from 2015 to 2019 and 65,953 building permits were issued during the same period.

SRDP Programmes As part of the first phase of the Strategic Road Development Programme, 26 major roads have been widened and multilevel flyovers and major junctions have been developed on the respective routes to pave the way for signal free traffic.

As part of this, 7 skyways, 11 major corridors, 68 major roads and 54 grade separators were undertaken. Of these, construction of 9 flyovers, four underpasses, three ROB / RUBs and one cable bridge were completed at a cost of RS.1010.77 crore. Another 20 development works are in progress at a cost of Rs 4,741.97 crore

Construction of Link Roads In order to reduce traffic load on main roads, GHMC undertook laying of missing link roads for improving connectivity to major roads as part of infrastructure development. As part of the first phase, 37 missing roads were identified, land acquisition and asset acquisition were completed and construction of these roads was undertaken.

Cable Bridge at Durgam

The world's longest span, concrete extra dosed cable bridge was built over Durgam pond, at a cost of Rs 184 crore. With a length of 735.639 meters, the bridge provides easy transportation from the Hi-Tec City to the Financial District as well as other parts of the city. Traffic was significantly reduced especially on Madhapur Road, Jubilee Hills and Road No.36.

Veterinary Activities

GHMC has built the first dog park in the country at a cost of Rs 1.10 crore on an area of 1.30 acres at Kondapur in Sherilingampally zone. The dog park is ideal for senior citizens to exercise their pet dogs in public places without resorting to road accidents. GHMC operates 5 specialized animal care centers in Hyderabad as part of its Animal Birth Control and Anti-Rabies Program to control street dog births and prevent rabies

Multipurpose Function Halls

in order to facilitate to lower- and middle-class people to conduct marriages, functions etc, constructions of 14 multipurpose function halls were taken up at a cost of Rs. 34 crore. Out of these 5 multi-function halls completed and brougt in use at a cost of 14.30 crore. Another 5 multi-purpose function halls will be completed in couple of months and rest are in different stages of constsruction.

Construction of 2BHK

The construction of 2BHK houses at 111 places is going on as brisk pace. The 2BHK houses which were completed at Singam Cheruvu Thanda, Syed Saheb Ka Bada, Chittramma Basthi, erukala Nancharamma Basthi, Rythu Bazar Vvanasthlipuram were allotted to the beneficiaries.

Model Graveyards

As many as 31 graveyards developed on the lines of Mahaprastanam with Phoenix Foundation under. The crematorium has end-to-end facilities and amenities under one roof: Regular and electric pyre, Pujari, ceremonial yard, flowers, rest rooms and washrooms, ashes storage lockers, Wi-Fi enabled viewing etc. Out of 31 graveyards 25 graveyards work completed and remaining are in progress.

Junction Improvement

To provide hassle free flow of traffic to the citizens, junction improvement and beautification works were taken up at 16 places.