The Hyderabad bypass, an 11 kilometres-long road connecting M9 Motorway with the National Highway and Hyderabad with Jamshoro district, has now been officially recognised as a forsaken stretch of the road. In a recent correspondence with the National Highway Authority chairperson, Hyderabad Deputy Commissioner Fuad Ghaffar Soomro has jotted down the problems of traffic congestion, accidents and the absence of an aesthetic feel on the bypass.
He has also emphasised on the need of construction of a new bridge over the Indus River by the side of an existing bridge. The bypass stretches from the toll plaza of M9 Motorway to Hatri, a rural town of Hyderabad. Tens of thousands of vehicles pass through the bypass, which is a two-lane dual carriageway, every day.
In a letter to the chairperson, he stated that traffic congestion complaints have surprisingly increased during recent months. The DC observed that the bypass narrows down on more than a kilometer-long bridge on the Indus River where the road surface is also ridden with potholes and bumps. "If any commercial [heavy transport] vehicle breaks down at this narrow passage, it makes the traffic jam run for many miles."
He stated that the slow movement also causes inconvenience for local residents and creates administrative issues. "This busiest bridge is devoid of road safety features having no road signs, road marking and illumination on roads with weak and damaged side walls," he stated in his report. "There are no trees on the whole 11-km patch of Hyderabad bypass."
According to the DC's proposition, a new bridge should be constructed over the Indus river by the side of the existing bridge. "The bridge should be built in the larger public interest," he wrote.
The DC also pointed out the absence of electricity poles on the bypass. According to him, the law and order incidents also surface especially during traffic logjams. He asked the NHA to install electricity poles on the road. Some u-turns and an intersection at one of the end points of the bypass in Husri have become sources of frequent accidents on the bypass. Mainly the Husri intersection, which connects the old national highway which runs through Hyderabad to the main national highway, witnesses a larger number of accidents. Soomro described the intersection as a "result of bad engineering". He suggested that the available space on the intersection can be used to build a monument in order to add beauty to one of the city's entrance spots. Several acres of NHA own land inside a circular road which connects bypass with an inter-city road near Rajputana hospital lie idle.
The piece of land often comes under encroachment for whose removal the district administration and the police are approached by the NHA. The DC proposed that the idle land should be turned into a green space with tree plantation in order add to the city's beautification. He said the NHA has already undertaken similar projects of beautification in other cities of the country.
He lamented that the district administration has time and again urged the NHA for the said beautification works but to no avail. The former DC Aijaz Ali Shah also wrote letters to the NHA on November 1, 2018, February 9, 2019 and July 18, 2019, over the same issue. On February 1, 2019, an officer of the NHA at a meeting with the DC had agreed on a range of works on the bypass also including installation of the solar lights and establishment of a park.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2021.
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