The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is spending Rs 200 crore on re-carpeting the city's roads with layers of bitumen year after year and not following road engineering rules. As a result, the rains of the past few days have washed away the bitumen on several stretches of the main road corridors in the city. Thousands of potholes have turned into dangerous craters. Vehicle speed on Sardar Patel Road, where a young college girl died recently because of the bad condition of the road, has come down to five-kilometre per hour.    

The situation is no different elsewhere in the city. Citizens want the GHMC to spend tax payers’ money to lay good quality roads and stop the routine exercise of just re-carpeting the corridor with a layer of bitumen that gets washed away with a single spell of rain.    

Professor C Ramachandraiah of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies has alleged that the engineering section of GHMC, which is responsible for laying and maintenance of roads, is neck deep in corruption. The Lok Ayukta should suo moto take up the case and make officials of the engineering wing and its head accountable for the waste of tax payers’ money. Going by the bad condition of the roads, it is clear that there is a nexus between the engineering officials and the contractors. Quality norm is not being followed.    

The GHMC officials have learnt to blame the weather for the erosion of the bitumen. But what are the specifications of road-laying? Why do bitumen roads in foreign countries not get washed away as early as it happens in Hyderabad?” Prof. Ramachandraiah asked.