Rain-damaged roads give grief to motorists in Hyderabad

The long spell of rain may have eased a bit in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas but commuters are bearing the brunt of the destruction wrought on the roads. Long stretches of roads are either waterlogged, potholed or have completely disappeared in the city. Even the roads that branch off from Road no 1 Banjara Hills have become unmotorable. The Old Bombay Highway which is a regular choke point is being avoided by motorists as the incomplete work has reduced the carriageway between Tolichowki and Rethibowli. The result: any motorist who doesn’t see online traffic maps and uses this stretch gets trapped in an hour-long slow-moving affair.

“You have not seen the roads in Dabeerpura, Yakutpura or Babagadda. This is a fantastic road in comparison to them,” says Asghar, navigating an autorickshaw in the Masab Tank-First Lancer road stretch. It is like a competition for identifying the worst stretch of road in Hyderabad with people in Ameenpur, Bahadurpura, Gajularamaram, Toli Chowki and Jawaharnagar.

“Had to travel today to most parts of Manikonda. Shaikpet/7 Tombs Rd, OU Colony,  Pipeline Road, Secretariat Colony and part of Alkapoor and finally Narsingi. Manikonda roads are in pathetic condition. Even the main roads are full of potholes and it’s better not to talk about other roads,” shared one social media user about the state of roads on Saturday.

If the conditions of roads in outlying areas of the city are shocking, that of important stretches is no better. The arterial Bengaluru Highway that is used by most south-bound vehicles is rutted resembling moonscape making vehicles wobble on a continuous basis. The Nehru Zoological Park which attracts thousands of visitors has had its access road in an unusable state for the past few weeks. The road beside the incomplete Shastripuram Flyover is another point of traffic congestion due to water-logging and disappearance of asphalt.

When a photograph of this stretch in Bahadurpura road was shared on social media, a civic body official responded with a photograph of an earthmover at work and a message: “Inconvenience regretted sir, the restoration work is in progress.”

“The colony roads in Babanagar in Mallapur have been rutted and cannot be used due to movement of heavy vehicles of Food Corporation of India and Indian Oil smart terminal. The rain has only worsened the conditions of the roads,” says Ayush Singh, an architecture student who lives in the area. “We register complaints and every few months the road gets filled up but it deteriorates just as quickly,” says Mr. Singh.