Hyderabad: Almost two years after sanctioning one of its flagship infrastructure projects, the Telangana govt has scrapped the KBR Park corridor plan involving 14 flyovers and underpasses. Senior officers told TOI that the success of the one-way traffic plan, introduced barely a month ago, led to the scrapping.The project, estimated to cost around Rs 1,100 crore, was conceived to ease traffic congestion on the busy KBR Park–IT corridor and make the stretch largely signal-free. However, the one-way system removed the bottleneck without the massive investment.The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is now planning to have just one flyover on the stretch but is yet to finalise its location. “GHMC will now work on a fresh proposal. We are currently working on new alignments, cost estimates and identifying the stretch that requires a flyover,” said a senior officer in the municipal administration and urban development department.The proposed project had also faced opposition from environmental activists under the Save KBR campaign, supported by TOI. The activists had raised concerns over the impact of the construction on the park, which is the biggest green lung in the heart of the city.Traffic experts, however, caution against treating the initial success of the one-way arrangement as a long-term solution. “Bengaluru is facing traffic problems after implementing one-way arrangements on several stretches. Officials must see this as a permanent solution only after studying it for a while,” said Vinod Kanumala, founder of Indian Federation of Road Safety.Experts also say the corridor may still require two strategically located flyovers – one near the KBR entrance and another at the Jubilee Hills Check Post – both of which witness heavy traffic during peak hours.“Diverting traffic through a one-way system could simply move congestion to adjoining roads and junctions. Rather than taking a decision based solely on traffic movement on the main corridor, authorities must conduct a comprehensive study of all roads and junctions feeding into and carrying traffic away from KBR Park before finalising the new plan,” said T Satyanarayana Reddy, retired scientist, Central Road Research Institute.
