HYDERABAD: Residents of Tandur took to the streets on Tuesday, saying they had endured enough of pothole-filled rides and years of empty promises. Wearing black badges, they staged a sit-in protest demanding urgent repairs to the road connecting Tandur and Hyderabad.
Their anger was fuelled by Monday’s accident that claimed 19 lives, 12 of them from Tandur.
Former MLA P Rohith Reddy joined the protest and said that the condition of the road was a contributing factor in the tragedy near Mirzaguda. He called for urgent repairs to the route to prevent further accidents.
The road in question isn’t just any road — it’s part of the long-delayed APPA Junction-Manneguda four-lane highway project, meant to connect Rajendranagar, Chevella and Parigi constituencies. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) recently cleared the project after years of legal tug-of-war.
Originally, progress was stalled by a court case filed by activists trying to save roadside trees — a battle that led to rounds of discussions among district officials, the NHAI, and environmental groups.
The revised plan struck a compromise: of the 950 trees lining the stretch, only 150 would be translocated instead of felled. The petitioners withdrew their case, and the NGT gave its nod.
Back then, the NGT wasn’t amused by NHAI’s grand plan to ‘translocate’ 522 banyans without any solid scientific backing — most of them far too old and heavy to survive the move. It also questioned the absence of post-translocation monitoring and the assumption that newly planted trees could somehow replace centuries of ecological balance.
The NGT further flagged other procedural gaps, from incomplete biodiversity studies by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) to missing reports by the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) — all of which, it said, made a mockery of transparency and public participation.
For Tandur residents, though, the issue is painfully simple: they just want a road that doesn’t try to kill them on their way to work.
NH-163 turns deadly
The Hyderabad-BiJapur road (NH 163) is known for road accidents
November 3, 2025: As many as 19 people died when a tipper rammed into RTC bus near Mirzapur
May 19, 2025: Four people died and over 30 injured, when a tourist bus hit a stranded truck in Rangapur
October 24, 2024: Three died in RTC bus accident near Pudur
December 2, 2024: Four died when a truck rammed into vegetable vendors in Alur
EXPANSION OF NH 163 IN VIKARABAD
The expansion works start at Angadi Chittempalli (Pudur)
The expansion of NH will be done till Bichal (Doulatabad)
Dangerous curves on this 71-km stretch: 24
Black spots: 30
Over 38,000 vehicles travel daily on this stretch
