Major Developments in Hyderabad – August 2012

The month of August had spate of issues for Hyderabadis including court rulings regarding engineering fee structure, power crisis, degraded roads, hike in auto fares, and so forth. Though a few positive events like Saina Nehwal’s Olympic victory, 2% sports quota in government jobs, etc., were cheering enough, they could not overshadow the stress of negative issues.

General:

• Organisation for Counter Terrorist Operations (Octopus), the elite counter-terrorist commando force of the state police, is now head quartered at Begumpet near CM camp office. The organization has been sanctioned the strength of 1,097 members, of which 500 are well trained commandos.

• The first indigenous surface-to-surface strategic missile which can attack targets in the range of 350 km, Prithvi – II developed by DRDO scientists was successfully tested at Integrated Test Range, Odisha. The army also successfully test fired Agni-II, a surface-to-surface ballistic missile, with a test range of 2,000 km for which the DRDO provided logistic support.

• According to City Crime Records Bureau, the dowry harassment cases in the city are on the rise. The city has registered 678 dowry harassment cases since January 2012. It was followed by 82 cases of molestation and 43 cases of rape.

• The city roads continue to remain in bad conditions, in the rainy season. Inspite of the city’s traffic police alerts, the civic authorities are showing least interest in repairing the roads.

• GHMC has launched its new call centre to allow people to lodge complaints and get information on various services. Customers can call to – 155304 (BSNL landline and Idea users) and all other users to 040-23302440, 040-23302550, 040-23302660, 8790715555, 8790725555 or they can even post their grievances online on the website.

• eSeva centres in the city will now be issuing three essential certificates – caste, income and residential proof certificates within hours of submitting applications. This facility is available for students belonging to Economically Backward Class (EBC), Other Backward Class(OBC), Schedule Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).

• GHMC is to sell small clay Ganesh idols at Rs 10 each, at different locations in the city – NTR Gardens, Sanjeeviah Park, Bhavan’s Degree College, etc.

• The Hyderabad Metro Rail’s third corridor (Nagole to Shilparamam), is now extended 1 km up to Raidurg and will be terminating here. The government has issued orders in this regard, and has also allotted 15 acres for parking and circulation area for the station.

Power crisis:

• The power cuts in the city are back to 3 hours for domestic consumers.

• The AP High Court has ordered various discoms in the state to adjust the already collected FSA from the consumers in their future bills.

• Poor monsoon this year, has resulted in the under performance of hydel power projects in the state resulting in the shortage of power supply for all the sectors across the state. APTRANSCO authorities have said that, the demand-supply gap of power is increasing day by day and they will not be able to generate power within the state and will not be even able to buy from other states even at higher prices.

• To encourage consumers to conserve energy announced cash prizes depending on the units saved. Because of the acute power shortage, GHMC too has promised to save 5 millions units per month, by saving on street lights and ‘lit ads’ of ad agencies.

Road, transport and traffic:

• The transport department has revised the auto fares in the city. The fares increased the minimum fare of Rs 14 to Rs 16, and the per kilometre fare from Rs 8 to Rs 9, w.e.f August 20, 2012.

• As a part of Comprehensive Transportation Study, being conducted by LEA Associates, in association with city’s traffic department and HMDA, a survey was conducted to know the usage of public transport in the city. According to the findings of this study, the number of buses in the city have grown by 13 % between 2009 and 2012, while the dependancy of buses has flattened off by 2-3% over the last 10 years. Also, the buses constitute for only 2.6% of the city’s vehicular transport and carry about 34.1% of the commuters.

• The Hyderabad city traffic police will be levying a fine of Rs.5000 on motorists having fancy or illegal signages on number plates.

• Hyderabad police commissioner has issued guidelines on Ganesh idol installation and procession to the organisers who are planning to set up pandals at public places. All organisers should obtain prior permission by filling and submitting the application forms that are available at all the police stations in the city from September 1 to 5. Any application submitted after September 8 will be rejected.

• As a part of the WHO’s ‘road safety project’, the city traffic police is aggressively conducting drives against drunken driving over the last few months. The Hyderabad city traffic police have reported that, they have booked around 8,400 drunken driving cases in the last 10 months. Further, the department has made it mandatory for the victims to attend counselling sessions at traffic training institutes in Goshamahal and Begumpet, either with their parents or wives, after which they are also legally liable to pay Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 as fine. The city police have also intensified the drive against female drunken drivers.

• Ministry of road transport and highways has identified 25 accident prone areas as ‘black spots’, of which 5 of them are in the city – Kothapet cross roads, Uppal cross roads, Gagan Pahad, Medchal and Miyapur. Hyderabad city contributed for 9% accidents and 8% of the fatalities occurred in the state in 2011.

• According to National Transportation Planning and Research Centre, Hyderabad had 2651 accidents in 2011, in which 441 were killed and 2528 were injured. According to this year’s statistics given by Hyderabad’s traffic police, the city has seen a continuous decline in road accidents and fatalities. This year the city had 1,518 accidents, of which 284 were fatal.

• According to the city traffic police’s reports, autorickshaw drivers in the city are the most common traffic violators. Nearly 13.88 lakh cases (27% of the total cases) are booked against auto drivers, while 11.69 lakh cases are booked against motorists, under the Motor Vehicles Act, between 2009 to July 2012. Also, between Jan-July 2012, auto drivers have paid a fine of Rs 2.8 crore for these violations.

Education and engineering

• The state fixed common fees for engineering courses (for cat A – Convenor quota and B – Management quota) for this academic year (2012-13) as Rs 35,000 for 604 colleges with combined seat strength of 1,92,311. It also announced that a differential structure will be followed in 85 colleges which claim to have good facilities ranging from Rs 52,000 to Rs 1,05,000 for 33,243 seats. Among the 85 colleges, in which differential fees was fixed, CBIT, Hyderabad topped the list with the highest fees of Rs 1,05,000, followed by Vasavi at Rs 98,700.

• Government has decided to pay the total fee to the eligible candidate studying in all the 604 colleges charging Rs 35,000 and for the eligible students in the remaining 85 colleges, where the fee ranges from Rs 52,000 to Rs 1,05,000 only selected category of students will get the entire fee.

• According to the official sources, the students of AP aspiring to get admissions into MBBS and BDS courses have to appear NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) conducted by CBSE and there will be no EAMCET. The first NEET will be conducted on May 12, 2013 in the state only in selected centres – Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vizag and Tirupathi. The notification will be released in December. Also, the CBSE will provide questions in Telugu, besides Hindi and English to make it easy for Telugu medium students.

• The state government has issued orders, offering two percent quota for meritorious sportspersons in the state for direct recruitments to all posts of government departments.

Real estate:

• GHMC has come out with a new software on its website, that allows the city residents to calculate their property tax by sitting at their homes. The owners by entering essential details like circle, locality, classification of building, nature of use of building, occupation type and plinth area, building construction type, age of building can get their amount of tax to be paid.

• In order to clear the pending BPS applications, GHMC has designed a five-pronged strategy. Most applications were held up due to lack of fire safety and urban land clearances. Daily disposal of BPS applications list will be displayed in respective circle offices.

Sports:

• Hyderabadi badminton player, Saina Nehwal has won an bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics, by defeating China’s Wang Xin.

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