A good monsoon, which is welcome, might only portend yet another round of misery for the city that is hardly prepared to tackle the concomitant calamities such as urban flooding.
Monsoons are set to arrive in less than two months, yet, the nala widening project initiated by the GHMC has not reached anywhere so far. Quantitatively speaking, not even one per cent of the works have been completed so far, in the project announced two years ago.
In 2017, the Telangana government had sanctioned ₹230 crore for widening of the storm water drains at 47 identified bottleneck points. This itself was in curtailment of the original proposal to widen the nalas all along, by removing close to 30,000 encroachments, which was based on two successive study reports.
Later, the number of properties to be affected was moderated to 12,000 along 358 kilometre length storm water drains, and upon realisation of the enormous task, further reduced to mere 47 bottlenecks along 16.55 kilometres.
The bottlenecks were later brought down to 46 to widen which the corporation will have to demolish 846 properties.
During the last two years, only four works, on 371 metres nala length have been completed at an expenditure of ₹4.54 crore, which does not even amount to one per cent of the work length wise, and two per cent cost wise.
A total of 21 works on 8.6 kilometres of nala length are in progress, with an estimated cost of ₹98 crore.
Of the 14 major stagnation points, for which structures such as box drains or box culverts are proposed as solutions, only two have been completed, respectively at Alugadda Bavi junction and Somajiguda-Punjagutta stretch, with an expenditure of ₹2.3 crore. Five more works are in progress with an estimated cost of ₹28 crore.
Other works pertaining to storm water drains, such as construction of retaining walls, cause ways and open drains, remodelling of nalas, among others, are progressing at relatively quicker pace. Eight works on this front have been completed on 2.8 kilometre stretch, with an expenditure of ₹33.6 crore, while works are in progress on 2.2 kilometres more with an estimated cost of ₹ 39.5 crore.
Officials from GHMC blame the slow pace of property acquisition, delayed shifting of utilities, non availability of labour vis-a-vis need for intensive manual labour, lack of space for diverting the existing flows, perennial dry weather flows, and restricted access to sites, among others for the inordinate delay.