Urban Transport Infrastructure November 2018 Urban Transport Infra November 2018 | Page 41

Interview
For MGBS-Falaknuma Metro, there
are some heritage and religious
structures and roads are narrow. How
are you planning to handle these
issues?
Mr. Reddy: We have already
completed the markings and there
were no protests. People seem to be
welcoming the Metro in the Old City.
We are not taking the road where
there are heritage structures, instead,
it will be done on the Mandi road,
which is 500 meters away from
monuments and there is no change in
alignment. Though we are giving
names of the Salarjung Museum,
Charminar, we are slightly away from
the monuments.
The Metro was planned a decade ago,
but new projects like strategic road
development plan (SRDP) have been
planned in the city, can these projects
hinder the Metro extension project?
Mr. Reddy: For SRDP projects,
GHMC refers their plans to us and we
ensure that they do not come in the
way of the metro after discussions. It
becomes a bit of a technical challenge
when a flyover and metro have to go
up simultaneously. At Mindspace,
there is an underpass, flyover and
above that Metro has to run. There is
no land but different solutions are
available. So we might go for a steel
bridge. There would be no issue to
connect to Raidurgam.
For the old city, Metro is another
means of transport. But for New city
where there is a dearth of connectivity,
it is a necessity. What is your take on
this?
Mr. Reddy: Hitec City is definitely
crucial for us. The Metro will do well
there rather than the patronage that
we are seeing currently. We are
planning many skywalks and street
level works of higher standards at
Hitec City. Ultimately people need to
go to the airport from different areas,
so be it Old City or New city, the
Metro will connect all parts.
for a few meters and beat up our
security guards. We don’t want to be
tough with commuters slowly the city
has to learn. We will give our version
to the court on how systematically we
have done parking and are creating
smart parking and multilevel parking
facilities.
Footpaths look wonderful, but experts
claim that they are not scientific and
disabled-friendly. What is your
response to that?
Mr. Reddy: To make it disabled-
friendly, we are putting up ramps,
and we are putting boulders to avoid
two-wheelers from entering on
sidewalks. Some boulders will be
removed to make it further disabled-
friendly and even now some
wheelchairs can go through them. As
the saying goes, a tree that gives
fruits gets the maximum hits from
stones. HMRL is in a similar position.
HMRL is a responsive organization,
we will do it.
Where are the Multilevel parking
(MLP) likely to come up?
Mr. Reddy: We have identified places
across the city which includes in
Secunderabad at old Gandhi hospital,
Opposite Hari Hara Kala Bhavan,
Malakpet at Jail Garden, TSIIC’s has
two sites one near the Lemon tree and
Raidurgam side, Old city near
Khilwat. Initially, 20 places have
been identified and in-total 45 places.
We are finalizing documents for
MLPs after seeing the best practices
of the world. Nampally will be the
first one and will change the face of
the area and is getting a good
response.
Phase 2 is a government-funded project
and since it is on the outskirts, it won’t
be amenable for a PPP. The conditions
which the government of India has put
are tough as the ridership figures must
emerge from different studies. There is a
comprehensive mobility plan that needs
to be prepared and those figures need to
be taken and extrapolated to the metro
corridors. We are already doing it. The
draft DPR is ready. In a week or ten
days, we will give the DPR Phase-2.
The Central government did not want to
compensate the remaining amount for
viability gap funding, due to the increase
in ticket prices. What is your say?
Mr. Reddy: L&T is still at it. We have
written to the government. We got most
of the money, but some folks think that
this can be stalled. We got Rs 1,204
crore and we are yet to get another Rs
254 crore. We faced a much bigger
challenge and we are hopeful of
resolving this.
At the onset, Mr. Reddy informed his
engineers that they were not building
the Taj Mahal, but building a Metro
which would solve socio-economic
problems and so the women safety
aspect was key. He said, “We spoke to
several groups of women to understand
their problems. Now we have 64
cameras with 360-degree vision and the
data is stored for 15 days which creates
a fear psychosis that somebody is
watching thereby making it more secure
for women to commute. We provided
enough lighting and are working on
last mile connectivity now. Cities can’t
be for cars, but for people. With the
alignment of Hyderabad being the best,
I wanted to extend the scope of it
further with the Metro.”
What are the parameters for picking
20 spots for developing MLP facilities?
Mr. Reddy: The key criteria are
government lands which are closer to
transportation hubs. We want to
make MLPs hubs of activity which
are closer to MMTS, Metro or bus
stations. The availability of a big
chunk of government land, minimum
1 acre is needed. The MLP near
Monda market is going to make a big
difference for Secunderabad station. ***
It is going to be a beautiful MLP with
buses at one level, may be a good
hotel or multiplexes or shopping mall.
You have faced criticism from citizens
and the court also took suo-motto
cognizance of a letter written by a
citizen on parking, what do you have
to say about it?
Mr. Reddy: I cannot change the city’s
behavior overnight. We created a
parking facility, but still, some of the When is DPR for Metro phase 2
people behave irresponsibly. Some of expected and why is there a delay?
Interview Credit: Ms. Naveena Ghanate
them deliberately do not walk even
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Urban Transport Infrastructure | November 2018