Towers turn city into maze

HYDERABAD: The city is growing vertically and the traffic is moving into the city at a tremendous rate. And Hyderabad is already the second most polluted city in the country.
Road widening has contributed to the increasing height of buildings due to relaxation of the ‘floor-space index’ by the MCH in return for building owners giving up their land for the road widening.Illegal construction of high rise buildings with the administration remaining a mute spectator only to regularise such unauthorised constructions later, has contributed to the city seeing a proliferation of vertical growth, a senior government official said.
As the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (Huda) and Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) take up an increasing number of projects, which form a part of the various international events hosted here, they appeared to have forgotten their basics. And so, the city threatens to become a maze.
The spurt in the density of population has made Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) authorities helpless as the infrastructure of drainage and waterlines are unable to meet the ‘rising’ demand.
Constructions of multi-storeyed apartments and office blocks have outnumbered their lesser cousins — buildings with just a floor or two. And so, the pressure on providing civic amenities is all the more, the official explained.
Even in cases where such high-rise constructions are not allowed by the MCH, the builders go ahead, add a floor or two more to the structure, and then seek regularisation, the official added.
There are 42 main roads in the city along which high-rise buildings can be constructed, the official said.
According to the official, here is what the rules say: A 30-feet wide road cannot have a building taller than 10 metres; A 40-feet wide road the height of towers is restricted to 15 metres; Even a road wider than 60 feet cannot have a building taller than 15 metres.
In the process, the one time proposal of a ‘Ring Town’ around the city as well as a green belt, have become casualties. The Ring Town was supposed to take the pressure away from the city with respect to population and civic amenties.
Since 1980, there has been a quantum jump in the allocation of land for residential use and a reduction of area that was to be set aside for conservation purposes. This was done by allotting the land for the residential use carved out of the conservation zones, the official explained.
A comparison between the period 1980-92 indicates that the areas under residential use have increased from 1.65 per cent in 1980 to 8.24 per cent in 1992. The area under agricultural use around the city for the same period, showsa marginal decline from 42.11 per cent to 30.36 per cent during the same period.