Road to Development: Telangana sprints, Centre crawls

Hyderabad: Five versus 47 is what differentiates the Centre and the State when it comes to laying roads to development. The determination to develop roads, one of the most crucial components of infrastructural development in Telangana, India’s youngest State, is visible in the pace of the projects launched both by the State and Central governments. […]

Hyderabad: Five versus 47 is what differentiates the Centre and the State when it comes to laying roads to development. The determination to develop roads, one of the most crucial components of infrastructural development in Telangana, India’s youngest State, is visible in the pace of the projects launched both by the State and Central governments. There is no need to go far for this, with the sharp contrast very much visible in Hyderabad and its vicinity itself.

The State government, which has created a flagship programme for roads in the form of the Strategic Road Development Programme (SRDP), has in the last four years completed a staggering 31 projects, while 16 more are in various stages of progress.

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On the other hand, in the same timeframe, five projects proposed by the union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways in and around Hyderabad have reached nowhere. Interestingly, the foundation stone for four of these five projects were laid way back in 2018 by union Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari.

The four projects were the six-laning of the Aramgarh-Shamshabad section of NH-44 between Hyderabad and Bengaluru, the rehabilitation and upgrade of NH-765D from Hyderabad Outer Ring Road to Medak, the construction of a four-lane flyover at Amberpet Crossroads and building of a six-lane flyover from Uppal to Narapally. The fifth project, the construction of a 1.5 km-flyover at Bharat Heavy Electronics Limited (BHEL) Junction, is yet to see any progress.

On the other hand, Telangana has nearly completed phase-1 of the SRDP and phase-2 is all set to start, with Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao already announcing the projects to be taken up under the second phase. The SRDP, under which projects are being completed on a war footing, has already brought about a major metamorphosis in the city in terms of roads-under-bridges, roads-over-bridges, flyovers and underpasses.

Ensuring that the work was not affected even by the Covid-induced lockdowns, the State completed 31 projects at blazing speed. The Chandrayangutta Extension Flyover, Jubilee Hills Road No. 45, Ayyappa Society Underpass, which in fact was the first project completed under SRDP and inaugurated in January 2018, and the Mindspace Underpass, also inaugurated the same year, were some of the projects completed under SRDP phase-1.

More examples of projects that saw progress without inordinate delays are the Durgam Cheruvu Cable Stayed Bridge, inaugurated in 2020, and the Shilpa Layout Flyover, which is set for inauguration in a couple of months.

The effort gone into some of these projects, even while completing them in quick time, can be seen in the fact that the Durgam Cheruvu Bridge runs over a lake and is now called an engineering marvel. For the Shilpa Layout Flyover, some spans were installed around 18 m above the ground and placed across the existing Gachibowli Crossroads Flyover.

All these happened despite land acquisition hurdles, including religious structures on the same stretch where pillars of a project were proposed to come up, difficulties in shifting of utilities and legal issues.
“We made changes in design, coordinated with the heads of religious organisations, roped in elected representatives such as MLAs, stayed in touch with resident welfare associations and managed to execute the projects,” a Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation official said.