Hyderabad lags behind Kanpur, Lucknow: Economic Survey-2017

​Hyderabad: Despite scoring high in transparency, accountability and revenue parameters among urban local bodies (ULB), Hyderabad still lags in key benchmarks such as availability of services and per capita capital expenditure, according to the latest Economic Survey-2017 report.

Interestingly, the City of Pearls did not even match with non-metro cities such as Kanpur, Lucknow in terms of per capita capital expenditure, and stood at a distant 13th place among 21 cities ranked in the Survey. Per capita capital expenditure indicates the money spent on development of infrastructure and amenities and its correlation with population.

There is no co-relation between revenues and per capita expenditure, and unless intra-city traffic congestion is not addressed, the city can’t become a major destination for business investment, observe experts.

There’s no budget allocation for Hyderabad Master Plan implementation so far and this is reflected in revenues and per capita capital expenditure rankings, opine real estate industry representatives.

The Economic Survey carried out and published a study titled ‘From Competitive Federalism to Competitive Sub-Federalism: Cities as Dynamos,’ highlighting the performance of 21 ULBs across the country in four major parameters such as revenues, accountability/ transparency, services and per capita capital expenditure.

Hyderabad ranked second in transparency/ accountability after Mumbai, the India’s commercial capital. It also came second after Pune in own revenues as a percentage of total
expenditure.

However, the good performance of the city ended there as it was at 13th place in per capita capital expenditure after Mumbai, Pune, Kanpur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata and Raipur.

Hyderabad is only ahead of Dehradun, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Ranchi and Patna. The city, known globally for its prowess in information technology, also lagged in availability of services as it was ranked at fifth position after Chennai, Pune, Chandigarh and Mumbai.

When revenues are soaring every year, why city infrastructure is in poor condition? It clearly shows non-implementation of Master Plan, feels C Shekhar Reddy, past national president of realty body Credai.

Speaking to The Hans India, Reddy said: “The city traffic chaos are becoming a major block for Hyderabad to become a global city. I highly recommend to the Telangana government to immediately take up parallel roads. For this, colonies should be identified for parallel roads.”

Only airport, outer ring road is good. Barring this, city traffic and roads leading to industrial estates are overcrowded. If city infrastructure is in worst conditions, it’ll damage the image of GHMC, he added.

While suggesting on the need of the hour, Reddy further adds: “HMDA should take up a continuous research and development (R&D) activity on city requirements on short-term and long-term plans. Once master plan is announced, infrastructure should be completed accordingly, but unfortunately it's not done properly. No budget allocation for master plan implementation. This is further overcrowding the city”.

There has to be mandatorily plan on new roads and existing roads. Instead of doing crisis management on ad-hoc basis, it’s better to have a long-term vision and implement master plan to meet the future requirements of the city, he maintained.