Tech hub’s colony of shame
Crammed Anjaiahnagar, home to 10,000 IT workers, has streets just 16-ft wide
It is the biggest colony in the IT corridor, with a population of 25,000, but Anjaiahnagar still does not have basic facilities.
Techies working in multinational companies such as Raheja, Cyber Towers, Google, Infosys and others live in Anjaiahnagar because the rents are cheaper than in other localities like Kondapur, Kothaguda and Gachibowli.
The streets are very narrow, just 16 or 20 feet wide, water is supplied at low pressure, there are frequent power cuts and poor sanitation and underground drainage.
S.Vijay Kumar, a techie resident, said that the narrow streets cause traffic jams on internal roads during peak hours.
“Mostly, the main road from Anjaiahnagar bus stop to Siddiqnagar became an all time traffic road. We and techies from Gachibowli choose this way to reach Cyber Gateway and Raheja IT Park. During rainy season, the roads become ponds," he said.
The GHMC has found encroachments on the roads, that have narrowed it down but the civic body has done nothing to remove these.
In the last five years, the government has laid nearly 25 foundation stones for development programmes but there has been no work on the projects after that.
In fact, J. Vinay Kumar, a local, said that multiple foundation stones had been laid for the same project! “For the CC Road from Anjaiahnagar bus stop to Siddiqnagar, the previous government had laid foundation stones twice. The present government laid another foundation stone in 2015. Now the civic body is planning to lay one more foundation stone," he said. Kondapur corporator Shaik Hameed Patel said that all the pending work will be completed within a month. "The GHMC has sanctioned `98 lakh exclusively for Anjaiahnagar," he said.