SRDP around KBR Park repetition of Flyovers Blunder of 1996

FLYOVER PROJECT of 1996

 

The administrative & financial approval for construction of 16 flyovers, at an estimated cost of around Rs 125 Crores was cleared by State Govt., in a hurry and then the Chief Minister laid the foundation stones for four flyovers on March 12, 1996. The flyovers built were not based on proper traffic surveys and realistic growth projections; study of land availability, cost effective designs and alignments; environmental impact assessment etc. As a result, the project was unduly delayed, resulting in wasteful expenditure & avoidable hardship to the citizens and finally not providing the required relief to traffic congestion and air pollution.

LIMITATIONS OF FLYOVER PROJECT

 

Many of the flyovers were built, having the right of way around 20 to 24 meters only against the requirement of 28 to 32 meters, limiting the width of the vehicle carriage way and the service roads, imposing many restrictions on free flow of vehicular traffic, defeating the very purpose of flyovers. As the designs were prepared based on traffic census conducted in January 1996, and not based on futuristic and realistic traffic volume projections, these flyovers have now proved to be serious traffic bottlenecks.

Strategic Road Development Project (SRDP) around KBR Park

The Flyovers/SRDP are only “Supply Side Management” of the Traffic, which will have snowball effect on traffic problems / air Pollution. The benefits will not be commensurate with the expenditure /environmental impact involved. As it has proved to be in Hyderabad and Delhi, with building of flyovers /sky-ways by sacrificing the green cover, more and more vehicles are added contributing to more & more traffic congestion/problems and more air pollution.

SRDP is something like loosening the Belt to get relief from Bloating Tummy after Overeating.

What we need is “Demand Side Management”, so as to suppress volume of Vehicular Traffic by providing an efficient Mass Transport System and scientific Urban Planning & Development to suppress intra-city commuting. The pollution checks of automobiles are end of the pipe control measures and what we need are the preventive measures under precautionary principle.

CONCLUSION

As AP High Court observed in W.P Nos.25835/96 &35/97 “the City's Parks & other open spaces are hopelessly inadequate as per the standard in this behalf--.The city is already breathing less than required breath and further depletions, by acts of the state, of the lung spaces of the city will make the breathing more difficult"

" We have taken the view that any conversion of the parks to any other use, would violate the rights under Articles 21 & 14 of the Constitution of India, we unhesitatingly accept the Petitioners' plea that respondents have to be restrained from converting the parks to any other use"

Cutting down 3000 odd Trees in the name of SRDP is nothing but violation of the Right of Hyderabad Citizens for Good Quality of Life – to breathe Adequate Clean Air .