The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s latest proposal for five tunnel roads in the western part of the city brings the focus back on the one tunnel road for which feasibility study was mandated by the previous government.
The GHMC has recently called for expression of interest (EOI) for consultancy services towards feasibility studies and subsequent preparation of detailed project reports (DPR) for development of five tunnel corridors aimed at easing the ever increasing traffic congestion in the west zone.
The five proposed tunnels are each between ITC Kohenur and Wipro Circle via Khajaguda and Nanakramguda, ITC Kohenur hotel and JNTU via Mindspace, ITC Kohenur to Banjara Hills Road No. 10 via Jubilee Hills Road No. 45, GVK One Mall and Nanalnagar via Masabtank, and Nampally and Chandrayangutta Inner Ring Road via Charminar and Falaknuma.
While all these routes are highly congested in terms of commute, and require urgent and efficacious solutions, viability of such solutions remains the moot question.
A year-and-a-half ago, a similar study was commissioned through a reputed consultancy for studying the feasibility of carving a tunnel from under the Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park in order to circumvent the issue of tree felling in the park for construction of flyovers as part of the Strategic Nala Development Plan (SRDP).
The four-lane underground tunnel was proposed to connect the Road No. 45, Jubilee Hills, with the NFCL Junction with approaches from KBR entrance and Road No. 12.
The feasibility study was conducted and report was submitted to the State government, yet it has not seen the light of the day till now. The agency was to be paid ₹3.61 crore for the study and the DPR, with the latter yet to be conducted.
Officials under the condition of anonymity admit that it is a Herculean task given the complications involved. A tunnel boring machine needs to be deployed for carving out an underground route, and with the maximum width of such machine limited to 15 metres, two separate tunnels need to be bored for traffic both ways.
More cumbersome is the construction of approach roads on all sides, and the concomitant road widening.
“We need to go 30 metres beneath the ground level for the tunnel, for which about 10 kilometre clearance is needed around the area for construction of approach roads,” an official informed.
Land acquisition will be a cost intensive and time consuming exercise given the value of the property in the area where the project is to come up.
