GHMC to begin nala widening works from Dec

Hyderabad, Nov 19 (INN): The Greater Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad has sought the cooperation of the political parties and public representatives to take up the widening of the storm water drains (nalas) in its jurisdiction.

GHMC Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Reddy and commissioner MT Krishna Babu held a joint review meeting on Saturday along with Deputy Mayor Jaffer Hussain Meraj, floor leaders of GHMC, representative of political parties and senior officials to discuss the issue of widening of nalas in the city.

The Mayor suggested that the works pertaining to nalas' widening and removal of encroachments be completed in a stipulated time rather than prolonging the matter.

She said that Hyderabad city has been facing frequent flooding during the rainy season due to inadequate width of the nalas as the width of the nalas got reduced due to the several encroachments on both the sides of the nala.

GHMC has taken up widening of nalas as per the recommendations of the Kirloskar and Void Solutions consultancies. Funds were also sanctioned by the Government of India under JNNURM.

However, GHMC was unable to achieve much progress due to the resistance of the encroachers abutting the nalas and the GHMC has already worked out compensation and rehabilitation plan for the affected encroachers.

As the monsoon season is over and it is very important to widen the nalas immediately before the onset of the next monsoon season, the Mayor said.

CPI representative VS Bose suggested that the GHMC take up one nala at once and should take up another on completion of earlier work.

He has asked the GHMC Commissioner to concentrate on newer structures that are coming up on nalas.

Asking the GHMC to disclose the details of Kirloskar Committee report, Srinivas of CPM party demanded detailed discussion on the issue. He also enquired about the rehabilitation arrangements being planned for removal of encroachments.

He said the CPM would support the removal of encroachments only after alternate arrangements are made in nearby localities.

MIM MLC Syed Amin-ul- Hassan Jafri said that the GHMC should take up all the nala widening works simultaneously.

He has also suggested involving local Police Inspector to check the encroachments on nalas that are coming up during night timings.

After hearing the suggestions from the public representatives, the GHMC Commissioner informed that the nala widening works were started in the year 2007 and GHMC is aiming to complete the works by next June or July with the sanctioned funding of Rs 266 crores.

He said that the GHMC will be providing the copies of gist of the reports of both the Kirloskar and Void Solutions committees. While removing the encroachments on nalas the GHMC is paying structural compensations to partly affected structures and structure value + House under JNNURM (with 30% beneficiary contribution), he said.

Krishna Babu asked the Town Planning and Engineering staff to prepare month wise schedule from December to June for removal of nala encroachments which could be circulated to the political parties and public representatives to give them a clear idea about the working pattern.

He sought the cooperation of political parties to complete the work in a time bound manner.

The Commissioner also informed the political representatives that a professional call centre, which works for 24 hours, would be ready in a month's time in the GHMC.

He has appealed to the citizens of the twin cities to help the GHMC to curb the encroachments by duly calling on 155304 to inform about the encroachments which are coming up in their localities, so that the said encroachments could be removed immediately in coordination with Police Officials.