manoj

As many as 33,000 vehicles zip past Punjagutta junction every hour during peak time. Now, nearly 60 per cent of this road on the Somajiguda side is occupied by the Greenlands and Punjagutta flyover works.

Motorists on Thursday faced the full brunt of ‘infrastructure development’ works when a 10-metre trench was dug up near the Monappa island, Somajiguda side of the flyover. Traffic crawled throughout the day, jamming all major roads around Punjagutta for kilometres.

Anita Prasad was returning to Banjara Hills from Tank Bund side in her car. She was stuck for half an hour on the Khairatabad flyover. It was not before another 40 minutes that she managed to reach Nagarjuna Circle.

Traffic police are helpless. The situation is only going to get worse when more digging would commence near the Nagarjuna Circle where the flyover’s one arm ends. Because of the decrease in the carriageway near Nagarjuna Circle, vehicle density on Nims road increased on Thursday which triggered traffic pile up till Khairatabad. The double pressure from the slow-moving traffic off Monappa island and the traffic from Nims affected movement of vehicles up to Ameerpet from Punjagutta junction.

“It has been nearly nine months since the construction work began and the flow of traffic has not decreased despite warnings to avoid certain roads. The same number of vehicles are travelling though the roads that are getting narrow every day,” said additional commissioner of police (traffic) A K Khan.
Khan even wrote to the MCH to speed up the construction process, which is likely to continue for another six months.

“The problem will not be solved by posting the limited officers we have. It will only ease up if motorists are willing to follow the diversions. The traffic police cannot divert an entire stream of traffic as we never know who is headed where. But people should be conscious of their routes and take appropriate diversions, avoiding heavy traffic roads,” Khan said.

The traffic police will be setting up huge signboards at Greenlands and Jubilee Hills checkpost and KBR Park asking people to avoid the Punjagutta-Khairatabad route and the Banjara Hills Road No 2-Nagarjuna Circle route as far as possible.

Those going from Jubilee Hills to Begumpet could go via Yousufguda and reach Greenlands and those from KBR can take Road No 12 up to Masab Tank and proceed further in that direction, Khan suggested.

Source: http://epaper.timesofindia.com (Hyderabad Edition)
Date Of Publish: 22-Dec-06

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karan

Hyderabad city, known for its unpredictable traffic and potholes...Great habit of city is of pan chewing and followed by spitting on roads. India is king in these and no country can come anywhere next to our great city and nation. Everything is in a great disorder and no one knows when the circus of traffic and bad roads will end.

streetwisw

It must be absoloutely frustrating for those travelling that route. I am sure the authorities are either not bothered or they are trying but it is out of their hands due to the immensity of the problem. Most people do not know how to use other routes when their favourite one is blocked. The authorities need to put out courteous signs helping people to get to their destinations by creating the diversions themselves and not depending on the public to make them. I hope things improve with time and after the road works are over. Planning needs to 100yrs ahead and not next 5 yrs. God help us!!

sidjor

sure the alternate routes have less traffic.. but if you noticed those routes also have a lot more potholes (yousufguda/srinagar colony road). To go to Begumpet from Jubilee Hills I still prefer the nagarjuna hills punjagutta road just because it is not dug up and messed up all through. Of course for me I am usually driving in non-rush hours.
Though traffic is heavy some people (esp cars) prefer easier to drive roads.