JAGTIAL: Even seven years after the tragic bus accident on Kondagattu ghat road that claimed 62 lives, the stretch continues to remain unsafe. Despite repeated appeals, light motor vehicles still ply dangerously on the steep two-kilometre ghat road, with little monitoring by police or the RTA, say locals.
While protection walls were later built in accident-prone areas, and a lone speed breaker was installed, safety measures remain grossly inadequate. There are no proper speed breakers, no traffic segregation and vehicles going up and down share the same narrow double-lane road. If a driver loses control, the risk of a head-on collision is high. Overloaded seven-seater auto-rickshaws and mini vans continue to operate unchecked, they added.
After the September 2018 bus tragedy, in which 105 passengers were on board and 62 — including women and children — died, a police checkpost and barricade were set up at the hillock entrance. But both have since been removed. What remains now, the locals claimed, are faded protection walls and neglected road safety structures.
Authorities had once drawn up plans for a new ghat road alignment to make the route accident-free, but the proposal was shelved.
Ramakrishna, a car driver from Ramadugu mandal who recently visited the Lord Hanuman temple at Kondagattu, said, “Every time we get down the ghat road, there is no sense of safety. The government should develop a new alignment like the one in Tirumala to prevent further accidents.”
RTA officials said a proposal for a new ghat road has been sent to the government.
Choppadandi MLA Medipally Satyam told TNIE that the previous government had neglected the issue. “This present Congress government is committed to developing both the temple and ghat road. We have invited Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy to the Lord Hanuman temple,” he said.