The crater-filled roads of Hyderabad claimed another life on Friday. A 25-year-old student, Bora Arun Kumar, died on the spot after he fell from the bike when his cousin applied the brakes at the Kukatpally Y-junction to avoid hitting a scooter. The scooter ahead had reportedly slowed down to avoid a crater on the road.
Arun was on his way to his training classes in SR Nagar with his cousin K Somashekar, a software engineer, when the accident took place.
It was reported that a scooter ahead of them slowed down to avoid a bad section of the road and to avoid hitting the scooter, Somashekar applied brakes. "Arun who was riding pillion, fell at a distance and died on the spot,” Kukatpally sub-inspector K Naidu said.
The Deccan Chronicle reported:
Mr Mohammed Waseem, an autorickshaw driver who witnessed the accident, said that he saw both two-wheelers slowing down and the second vehicle falling down. “Bad road condition was the only cause of the accident. Had the road been better, the accident could have been averted,” he said.
Last month, a 31-year-old software engineer D Ramakrishna Reddy died when he was returning home from work and hit the divider at Road No 2 in Banjara Hills while trying to avoid a pothole. That same week, a woman died due to potholes near Jeedimetla after she fell off her husband's scooter and a bus ran over her.
According to the police, Ramakrishna was speeding, and that was the cause of the accident.
Speaking to TNM earlier, Vinod Kumar Kanumala, founder of the Indian Federation of Road Safety, blamed the condition of the road. Vinod said, “16 to 18 percent of the accidents happening in Hyderabad are due to potholes or bad infrastructure.”
The recent rains in the city last month effectively exposed the bad shape of the city’s roads and public spaces.
The ongoing work for the Hyderabad Metro Rail is not of much help either. Many roads have been narrowed down and cordoned off for construction.
Municipal administration minister K T Rama Rao has been on the receiving end of multiple complaints from across the city on social media and has promised to look into it.
Meanwhile, the GHMC on Friday reportedly ordered a probe into alleged bogus bills filed by contractors for road repair works carried out in the city.
“There are allegations that the contractors who were asked to lay bituminous tar (BT) roads, have submitted bills without doing the work. Our quality control wing and the vigilance department will inspect these areas and verify the allegations,” GHMC Commissioner Janardhan Reddy was quoted as saying.
K T Rama Rao has also proposed a change in the structure of the GHMC, to tackle allegations of corruption.
Another serious problem the city faces, is the dust from the crumbling asphalt that is being kicked around by zooming vehicles.
According to earlier reports, some areas in the city recorded about 60.9 microgram of dust particles per metre cube in the air, and the weather reporting apps recorded a visibility of just 50% on some days.