Four years after the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) conceived the plan to have foot overbridges in different parts of the twin cities and after several false starts, the government has given consent to build 52 of them along with eight skyways at a cost of Rs. 207.71 crore.

Thirty-nine of them are to be built with the aid of Rs. 75 crore sanctioned by the HMDA, which had earlier expressed its inability to take up the construction by itself citing lack of staff.

Thirteen other remaining FoBs are to be taken up by the municipal corporation through the public, private partnership mode (PPP) with the chosen private party allowed to use “minimum” advertising space on them so as not spoil the aesthetics, as per orders issued by the Principal Secretary of Municipal Administration & Urban Development Arvind Kumar.

Mr. Kumar said initially about 50 locations were chosen for taking up FoBs, subways and others based on a meeting held with representatives of traffic police, RTC, revenue, HMR and others with a private agency IIDC given task of carrying out feasibility studies, preparation of bid document, processing, etc. It carried out the study in 140 locations and came out with a conceptual architectural design shortlisting 50 locations which got the GHMC approval. Twenty were to be taken up in four packages and in the first package. Raus Construction completed three and two are in progress, with no response for the other packages.

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