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Civic body remains mute as footpaths turn into parking lots
The struggle pedestrians undergo to navigate the crowded streets and encroached footpaths seems to be a never ending saga in the city.
Hyderabad: The struggle pedestrians undergo to navigate the crowded streets and encroached footpaths seems to be a never ending saga in the city.
About 95 per cent of the schools and hospitals, both private and government in the city have either encroached the footpath or demolished it. Several others have been using the footpaths for parking, to build shelter for the security staff and commercial establishments.
Strangely, even GHMC staff has been using them to park their vehicles. Even the apex court in January 2015 directed GHMC officials to remove all encroachments from footpaths to ensure the smooth flow of the pedestrians.
In fact, the GHMC has been pulled up by the High Court several times on this issue over the last three years. But the corporation officials have remained mute spectators to encroachments on footpaths in the city, where schools and hospitals are no exception. Sharing insights, Kanthimathi Kannan, founder president of Right to Walk Foundation said successive governments have been valuing the lives of rich ignoring the middle class and deprived sections.
She cited Banjara Hills Road No 1 as a better example to make her point. The state government and the corporation are more concerned about the 9 per cent population that uses four-wheelers owners, while ignoring footpaths, the basic right of a pedestrian.
“I want CM K Chandrasekhar Rao and GHMC commissioner B Janardhan Reddy to walk on the 100-m stretch of road from Somajiguda Circle to Greenlands Junction to realise the severity of the problem. It looks very easy for people who pass through the CM’s camp office in Begumpet. How can old people, women and school children walk safely on roads when there are no footpaths in the city?” Kannan questioned.
Sources in the GHMC said the HC in January last had directed the corporation and city police to make a public announcement on TV or public address system in areas everyday to warn shopkeepers and others against wrongful use of footpaths.
Sources said despite such warnings if anyone continued to use footpaths, then it would be open to GHMC to seek the help of police to remove those articles and take possession.
Again on June 22, when HC pulled up GHMC, the corporation then informed the court that it had removed 17,988 encroachments on footpaths and thereafter 2,847 temporary encroachments were removed between April 14 and October 6 last year.
The GHMC assured the court that it would continue this drive for the smooth flow of traffic, but has remained silent to please their political bosses.
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Hyderabad footpaths? Going, going, gone
