HMR leaves SRDP clueless with 150 no solution junctions

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) project has turned out a major hurdle for constructing Strategic Road Development Project (SRDP), as properties worth thousands have to be acquired by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation at more than 150 'solution less' junctions in the city.

The civic body officials claim lack of comprehensive planning left the HMR plan to get overlapped with the proposed SRDP.

The SRDP is a dream project of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao under which the GHMC has proposed to construct flyovers, sky-walks and grade separators at 18 locations on various road stretches in the city at a cost of about Rs 2,000 crore.

Under the phase I of the SRDP, the civic body has decided to construct multi-level flyovers and grade separators at 18 junctions; KBR Park entrance, Maharaja Agrasen junction (Road No. 12), Film Nagar, Road No. 45 junction, Jubilee Hills check-post junction, Cancer Hospital junction (Road no. 10 junction),

LB Nagar junction, Bairamalguda junction, Kamineni Hospital junction on Inner Ring Road, Chintalkunta check-post junction, improvement of grade separators at Uppal and Rasoolpura, Biodiversity Park junction, Ayyappa Society junction, Rajiv Gandhi Statue junction, Mind Space, construction and improvement of grade separators or flyovers at Owaisi Hospital and Bahadurpura.

A senior GHMC official on condition of anonymity told The Hans India that vision-less designs by the previous government to construct HMR has left no options for the civic body, now, to take the SRDP. He said that there were more than 150 junctions in the city where the civic body finds no solution.

Explaining about the hurdles, the GHMC official said, about eight metres distance has to be maintained from the centre of the 7-metre metro rail basement to avoid intersections and disturbance to the HMR project.

For instance, at junctions like Punjagutta, Khairatabad, RTC X roads, Narayanaguda, Habsiguda, Musheerabad and several others, have no land for constructing the SRDP, he pointed out.

Adding that, in order to begin the skyways, underpasses and grade separators at the above critical junctions, either the alignment of the Metro rail has to be disturbed or private properties worth thousands of crores need to be acquired for a stretch where it has to execute a mere Rs 200 crore worth of works.

This move would not only burden the civic body with thousands of crores but also consume more of its time, to begin the construction, after a series of possible court cases it will have to fight with the property owners, in case it fails to seal deals with them to acquire the much needed land for SRDP through negotiations.

The GHMC official said that the SRDP would be a reality at these critical junctions only with State government’s intervention and financial aid. He appealed to the government to hold an inter-departmental co-ordination meeting at the earliest for re-designing the project.

Meanwhile, the phase I of SRDP has already started at the Mind Space building. The civic body would construct two skyways from Bio Diversity junction to Hi-tech city junction and Durgamcheru to Raddison junction.

The GHMC would also construct an under pass near Mind Space junction. M Venkata Rao, Infra Projects Pvt Ltd, has bagged the project in these stretches.