KTR moots civic-police collaboration for pedestrian safety

HYDERABAD: Telangana government places a high priority on pedestrian safety, said MA&UD Minister K T Rama Rao on Thursday. The Minister was speaking at a coordination meeting of senior officials from the Municipal Administration and Police Departments.

The Minister urged both the Municipal Administration and the Police Department to work closely together to ensure pedestrian safety in Hyderabad.

While the state government had built several infra projects to alleviate traffic congestion in Hyderabad City, the minister said that there was still a lot of room to improve infrastructure for pedestrians.

According to the Minister, only new and innovative solutions would address the ongoing challenges of improving infrastructure in a fast-growing city like Hyderabad. He said that the Telangana government had always prioritised the construction of new road infrastructure, road expansion, and the improvement of pedestrian infrastructure.

The GHMC and Police Department officials informed the Minister about measures that can be implemented to provide more infra for pedestrians to walk and cross the roads.

Minister KTR said that the number of vehicles plying on the city roads increased by multi-fold in the past few years, and that issues rising out of it can be solved only by simultaneously strengthening public transport. He also discussed the possibility of laying new cycling tracks and footpaths for walkers.

Officials from the GHMC informed him that 60 major junctions in the city had been improved, and infrastructure for pedestrians was planned for 12 junctions. The junction development works were being carried out in Kukatpally, Somajiguda, Panjagutta, Kothapet, Habsiguda, and Khairatabad, among other places.