A colony of proactive denizens

Hafeezpet: Sarada Nagar Colony is one of the prime colonies in the area. Yet, it has been the lot of residents for a long time to suffer hardships on account of GHMC apathy to several civic issues plaguing the colony. Bad roads are one of the major concerns the colony residents have to face all through year.

Over the years, with their earnest pleas to civic authorities, the locals have been taking it upon themselves to take up development of their colony, by pooling in funds to undertake road repairs etc. Not only the GHMC, even local corporator Poojita Jagdeeshwar Goud has not paid any attention to their plight, they allege.

Speaking to The Hans India, the president of the colony welfare association, US Raju, said, "The GHMC and the corporator have only been promising better facilities but nothing has been done as yet from their end. We, colony members, therefore, came together and collected funds and repaired roads and drains on our own."

"Whatever developments that have taken place in our colony, all are because of the contributions by residents themselves, be it roads, drains, parks or streetlights," he said proudly of their collective initiative.

ABRP Reddy, the secretary of association, elaborated: "Five years back we submitted a representation to the HMWSSB for Manjeera connection, to which they asked us to pay one-third of the amount which was Rs 16 lakh. The supply started 15 days only, that too for half of the colony."

The unity among the colony residents needs special mention and stands as a very good example for other colonies. More than Rs 3 lakh has been contributed so far by the residents to repair or lay roads.

Due to unavailability of streetlights, a lot of anti-social activities were witnessed on the colony premises after dusk. Ganja smoking, a couple doing irregular activities, fights were among many incidents that posed threat to tranquility, and even safety and security of the denizens.

Realising that any number of pleas to the civic body were not going to elicit any prompt action, the colony members decided to install wiring and poles for the streetlights. The electricity department then only provided LED lights. Around Rs 60,000 was spent by the colony people for securing streetlights. The department gave 36 lights to the colony.

As the colony is surrounded by water bodies and has abundant greenery, there arose risk of dengue and malaria with sanitation taking back seat. After getting no satisfactory response from the entomology department, the colony members again chipped in Rs 50,000 money and purchased a fogging machine for undertaking fogging to prevent mosquito breeding.

ABOUT THE COLONY

Sarada Nagar Colony is spread over 30 acres and has around 210 houses. It saw the apartment complex coming up in 2015 where plot owners started moving in. There are six parks in the colony, out of which one was developed by the residents themselves where they contributed around Rs 1.3 lakh and one is taken for development by GHMC.

GHMC and corporator have only been promising better facilities but nothing has been done as yet from their end. We, colony members, therefore, came together and collected funds and repaired roads and drains on our own."

–US Raju, president, colony welfare association

The colony residents have approached us earlier with the representations and we are trying to rectify issues at the earliest

– Hari Chandana, Zonal Commissioner, GHMC

Representations for road adjacent to the Manjeera pipeline road and colony road have been submitted to the GHMC office. It is under process. Once the funds are finalised and released, the project will be initiated

– Poojita Jagdeeshwar Goud, Corporator, Hafizpet