Home to Hitec City - Crossing the railway track
Vivekanand
over 2 years ago
The issue is Active
( Mark as fixed )
Hitec city in Hyderabad employs lakhs of IT professionals, most of who reside in the heavily populated areas of KPHB, Nizampet, Kukatpally, Miyapur, MadinaGuda, ChandaNagar, BHEL, etc.
The current road connectivity is insufficient for the amount of traffic between these places and the IT hub. Given the number of apartment complexes that are coming up in these areas, this problem is only going to get worse.
The solution is to build more flyovers connecting these residential areas with the IT hub. The current one in construction for the past 5 years is not going to be enough to serve the traffic.
The road from these places to Hitec city needs to cross the Hyd-Mumbai railway track - there are 4 crossings in these areas:
1) Under-pass near Hitec city MMTS station
2) Hafeezpet flyover
3) Under-pass near Lingampally MMTS station
4) Level crossing near Lingampally, BHEL MIG
The recent rains have made both the under-passes (1 and 3) seem like rivers, leading to closures of these roads. Lots of people have resorted to parking their vehicles at the Hitec city station and going home.
The flyover at Hafeezpet leads to a potholed road near the Kondapur RTA office that causes long delays in the commute. Apart from the pot holes, this road is also water logged near the flyover. People spent more than 2 hours getting from Malaysian township to Hafeezpet, only to give up and come back. Even on a 2 wheeler it took people more than 2 hours to get to Gachibowli from Malaysian township.
The traffic on this stretch has also increased many-fold - I remember taking this road when the hitec-city underpass was closed a few years, and there was much less traffic then.
The level crossing at Lingampally is also subjected to heavy traffic and closure due to arrival of long distance trains on that section.
While these are all problems, the real problem is that these roads are not equipped to carry the 1 lakh plus people who need to commute during rush hour to work and back.
The railway track has literally divided the city into 2 parts - and we need more reliable ways to cross the track. We need more flyovers connecting the heavily populated areas on the other side of the railway track to hitec city.
The upcoming Metro is not going to solve this problem. The large number of apartment complexes coming up in KPHB and on the road from Moosapet to Lingampally are only going to make things worse.
Loksatta_team
Hi-Tech headache
________________
If there is one problem Lok Satta wants to solve in Kukatpally, it is the vexed issue of the HITEC City flyover. A third of the complaints we receive are about this issue. A few people ask us to travel during the rush hour to know what the pain is. Some of us do and are well aware of it.
Instead of giving abstract speeches about the 'system', this is an attempt to list out the origin and progress of this issue so that the citizens can see for themselves what we have done and what we have not done.
The story of the HITEC City Flyover
1. The flyover was sanctioned in 2007. As is usual with government projects, the route was checked only superficially and it was not completely analyzed. The construction commenced.
2. When the construction approached the railway lines, the railway department got involved and objected. Since the flyover would go over their proposed electric lines, they put a hurdle that the construction cannot proceed. Now we have a deadlock.
3. This is when JP got elected (2009). JP and team realized that political pressure will not work because the railway department will simply show the rules that the existing design violates the railway rules.
4. We now started pushing the HMDA department to come-up with an alternate design but they said they did not have the budget. We found sources within the department that helped us raise this amount. In an instance which all volunteers remember, we had to move between 4 offices on a single day like a chase scene in a movie to get signatures from four principal secretaries. Now we have the work order for a new design.
5. HDMA agreed to start working on the alternate design. It took a few months to see this through and in an example of what we were doing in the interim, JP had to make nearly 40 phone calls to get the design passed.
6. We have a new design and the next step is for all the departments to agree to it. But the rivalry is so high that it took months and months of effort and meetings to make them sit and agree to all aspects. This finally happened in 2012.
7. 2012: Things are set as of now and all indications are that the flyover will be complete this year. JP also met the CM twice to ensure that there are no more delays.
about 1 year ago
jittu
Nothing will workout. They can't do anything.
The main problem is, Railway dept planning to make Hitech mmts as a big terminal.
For that design of flyover should change, change in the sense need to start from the scratch
to increase the height as begumpet flyover. Even the flyover is finished it ia temporary (waste of people money).
They r still in thinking. Just change the home from kukatpally to other place and house owners in kukatpally enjoy the traffic as I am doing daily. Sorry to say guys.
about 1 year ago
Vivekanand
I guess RTI is the only tool we have to obtain such information. I am more interested in finding out the long terms plans for development of this area - HMDA had some grand plans a few years ago.
Anyone with experience obtaining information via RTI?
over 2 years ago
Gopi
a. Can we try to find out the amount spent on filling pot holes in this area in the last 2 years
b. Can we try to find out the reason for delay in the flyover work
We will atleast get to know the reasons for the troubles of thousands of commuters of this area
Is RTI the only way for this or there are any faster methods?
over 2 years ago
Vivekanand
Existing works do not solve the issue we are going to face in the next 4-5 years. Imagine just 2 flyovers to ferry all the people from the other side of the track to the IT hub.
Before the flyover widening at Begumpet and the flyover at Punjagutta was built, there used to be regular traffic jams during peak hours from Begumpet towards Ameerpet.
If only these flyovers are really world class, we can expect them to sustain. Unfortunately, our roads (even the newly built roads in the IT corridor) suffer from the old failings of water logging, pot holes, bumps, random digging, etc.
There are several issues here - urban town planning, construction quality, accountability towards tax payers and the govt (in case of private contractors).
This is a push towards better urban town planning.
Existing works like fixing pot holes, and bumps, etc. are merely band-aid - a waste of tax payers money. I have seen workers filling pot holes from the KPHB-Hitec city road thrice already during this rainy season. End result is that nothing has changed - the road condition has not changed.
over 2 years ago
Gopi
Shouldn't the first priority be to get the existing and works under progress fixed fast?
Dr JP was saying that the flyover delays are mainly due to inter-departmental delays (Railways, HMDA, GHMC, not sure which are others). Shouldn't the public put pressure on these departments to sort out these issues faster?
over 2 years ago
