1,200 colonies have no street lights

In the 2013-14 financial year, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) saw a spurt in revenue by collecting Rs 1,100 crore as property tax compared to Rs 747 crore in the previous year.

The public pays property tax, drainage cess, water tax etc, but still lives in harrowing conditions. If lack of sanitation, overflowing drains and pothole laden roads greet the residents in colonies under the old MCH limits, the colonies which are included in the GHMC after merging the panchayats on the outskirts have to battle lack of street lights, proper roads and drinking water.

A recent survey report with the GHMC town planning authorities identified 800 such colonies that are battling various problems. The startling figure assumes even more importance on the eve of elections.

The GHMC spends close to Rs 400 crore annually for providing basic amenities. Going by the report, these funds are in no way enough to address the issues faced by many areas like Ramamchandrapuram, Patancheru, Serilingampally, Kukatpally, Qutubullapur, Uppal and LB Nagar. The colonies in the above areas do not have street lights.

Sources said a cost analysis was done by a committee whose report said if street lights were installed in all these colonies, the electricity bill would alone cross Rs 200 crore and, therefore, the idea was shelved.

Colonies near Baptist Church in Adikmet have to battle perennial overflow of drains. Colonies in Ramnagar have to negotiate through pothole laden roads. The residents of the Bapuji Nagar in Musheerabad have a tough time during monsoon as water floods the roads as the storm water nalas aren’t wide enough. Residents of Marutinagar, Khairatabad, have to live amidst garbage, as bad sanitation rules perennially. These are only a few problems that are identified in the survey.

The GHMC authorities have come up with various plans to combat these problems; however, those plans were scrapped for trivial reasons. The grandiose plan called Total Infrastructure Provision (TIP) aimed at providing necessary basic infrastructure to colonies was scrapped to take up mega projects like flyovers, bridges and road-widening works in the erstwhile MCH limits with a budget of Rs 600 crore in 2011.

The authorities came up with another programme as replacement to TIP called Greater Hyderabad Development Programme (GHDP); however, this plan too had failed to stem the rot.