HMDA puts blame on Covid for flyover delay
Only 17 piers of Balanagar skyway built in 3 years
Coronavirus has further delayed the construction of the Balanagar flyover which, on completion, would provide signal-free connectivity between Secunderabad, Kukatpally, Balanagar, Quthbullapur, Gajula Ramaram and Suchitra areas.
The project has been in limbo since three years though the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has constructed 17 piers, while laying foundation for five more. Following municipal administration and urban development (MA&UD) minister K. T. Rama Rao’s instructions with regard to the flyover, the HMDA claims the project would now be completed in four months.
Officials of the metropolitan authority are continuing to blame Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) for delaying land acquisition for the flyover. City mayor Bonthu Rammohan had in November last year said holders of properties along the project had signed an agreement to hand over their assets to the civic body.
Of the total 367 properties, 120 had already been acquired while 76 of them belonged to the government departments.
The mayor declared that the remaining properties would be acquired under the land acquisition act. Despite the assertion of Bonthu Rammohan the flyover hasn’t moved forward even an inch.
A senior HMDA official maintains that the coronavirus crisis will further affect the project as labourers are unwilling to work. However, the private agency, which has been executing the project, says its labour have been sitting idle due to delay in the land acquisition process by HMDA and GHMC, despite intervention of MA&UD minister and principal secretary Arvind Kumar.
Significantly, construction of the flyover has remained incomplete though four years have gone by on the pretext of land acquisition.
The HMDA now says that if everything goes according to plan, the project would be completed in four months. It is stated that the metropolitan authority has already spent `265 crore on land acquisition. It would utilise remaining `122 crore on construction of the flyover. Officials say had GHMC acquired properties in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, half the work on the project would have been completed by now and the flyover put into operation by this month end.