Currently, works with an estimated budget of Rs. 2,107 crore are being carried out across the city.
UPDATE – 12:31AM, FRIDAY – DECEMBER 16 22
Photo: Anand Dharmana.
Hyderabad: The right to walk is often a casualty of infrastructure planning, which is more focused on simplifying the movement of vehicles, while pedestrians get an unfair treatment.
Things have been changing in the city as the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has set out to enhance pedestrian safety and develop sidewalks wherever possible. Currently, works with an estimated budget of Rs. 2,107 crore are being carried out across the city.
The municipal body for 2022-23 has allocated Rs 311.1 crore for pavement construction, out of which Rs 100.4 crore has been completed and the rest is in progress.
More recently, GHMC Engineering has been seeking to provide safer pedestrian spaces along busy road corridors with heavy traffic, which has resulted in a significant increase in the length of sidewalks, especially over the past eight years.
While the total length of footpaths restricted by the GHMC in 2014-15 was 452km, this has increased to 816.90km by 2021. More work is underway to further expand the sidewalk network for pedestrians. The rapid increase in the length of pavements has been achieved through GHMC spending Rs 618.7 crore on pavement construction and maintenance between 2019-20 and 2021-22.
A GHMC engineering department official said a number of measures had been taken for pedestrians, including construction of new sidewalks, maintenance of existing sidewalks and enforcement actions to prevent sidewalk occupation.
“The development of sidewalks has been done in all four parts of the city. For example, in the east of the city, within LB Nagar district alone, Rs 0.47 crore has been approved for the development of sidewalks in 2022-23. Of these, we have completed 0.16 crore and the rest are in progress,” he said.
To protect sidewalks, city agencies, in partnership with police departments, have been fighting encroachment and freeing up spaces for pedestrians. Several sidewalk encroachments were recently demolished in the southern region, including Santosh Nagar, Salala, Edi Bazar, Hafeez Baba Nagar, Bahadurpura and Kishan Bagh.
