Sunday, Aug 01, 2004
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Hyderabad
By J.S. Ifthekhar
HYDERABAD, JULY 31. Is the much-touted project to beautify and protect Hyderabad's most famous icon given a short shrift? It appears so. Although officials deny, it no longer figures high on the Government's agenda. Bureaucratic wrangling and lack of inter-departmental coordination has turned the Charminar Pedestrianisation Project into a pointless project. The project is aimed at restoring and enhancing the visibility of the monument and bringing about a holistic tourist experience. But all that has been done during the last few years is nothing but road-widening. And even this remains incomplete to date.
Whither the project?
Officials seek to explain the snail's pace of progress to festivals, curfew, Afro Asian games, elections. But the fact remains that three years and Rs. 3 crores after the project is nowhere near completion. In fact the project implementation committee comprising six departments is no longer in place to coordinate things. As part of the phase I of the project, a buffer zone should have been created around the monument, the Laad Bazar stretch should have been improved, movement of heavy vehicles should have been completely stopped in both directions. But not a single thing has been completed so far. Interestingly, the MCH officials seem to be still unsure about who is in overall command of the project. A senior official heading the project thinks it is the Tourism Department that is incharge when in May last itself the Government handed over the project to the MCH. The Tourism Department washed its hands of the project on the plea that it did not have an engineering wing. It was in July 2001 that the Corporation took up widening of the 7.1- km ring road connecting Dar-us-Shifa and City College. Of the 715 properties coming in the way 585 have been demolished and a structural value of Rs. 6.76 crores paid. Under the Land Acquisition Act 114 properties have been acquired recently and they are yet to be handed over for demolition. In respect of another 14 properties negotiations are on, it is said.
Bus diversion
What exactly holds up the complete diversion of RTC buses? It is shifting of the present bus depot at Charminar to Falaknuma. The MCH has levelled 1.5 acres out of six acres of RTC land at Falaknuma for shifting of bus depot. But the RTC management now wants the remaining land also to be levelled as it wants to have a suburban terminal too there. The MCH is reluctant to do so as the land is full of deep trenches and would cost a fortune. There is no move by either Corporation to sort out the issue. What about the Laad Bazar beautification plan? Here too no headway is made. Underground cabling, modern lights, street furniture, parking lots - all remain merely on paper. Uniform signage also hangs fire as none knows who has to bear the cost - MCH or the shopkeepers.
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