Hyderabad's Surya Nagar Colony: The road not taken, quite literally!
HYDERABAD: The path leading from Safilguda main road to the streets of Surya Nagar Colony, home to over 2,000 people, is lined with decorative arches put up for campaigning ahead of the December 7 Assembly elections. Ironically, once the decorations end, what you get to see is gravel and mud instead of roads.
“We’ve stopped taking the car out for work. What is the use when even two-wheelers find it difficult to go through the lanes?” said a resident of the colony. Roads in Surya Nagar were dug up for drainage works in January, leaving several gaping holes in the ground. Three months back the roads were completely dug up for pipes to be laid.
“HMWS&SB officials said they would repair the roads in January, but things have only gotten worse. GHMC officials of Malkajgiri division scrapped off even the excuse of roads we had. They promised to lay new roads in October. It’s December and we’re still waiting to hear from them,” said Jagadish, one of the residents of Surya Nagar.
With open drainage adding to their misery, residents in the area said a few people had met with accidents due to the loose gravel on the path. “It’s so risky to walk on the road that we don’t let our kids play outside our houses,” said colony president Veeraiah Vallabhaneni.
“We contacted GHMC officials concerned, registered complaints on the GHMC app, went to the Malkajgiri office and did everything we could from our end. One of the officials informed us that they were low funds and hence the delay,” said another resident.
What the officials had to say...
GHMC Malkajgiri AE Swaroopa told TNIE he was aware of the situation. “We’re at present working on the stretch at JK Colony. We’ll start work at Surya Nagar from Monday or Tuesday. As I was busy with election work, no one was able to supervise the work,” he said.