GVK junction reaches traffic saturation: Experts

HYDERABAD: Despite Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) announcing in 2017 that Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) study guidelines would be made mandatory for giving town planning permissions for buildings like malls and big residential infra projects in the city, these guidelines are yet to be issued.
In fact, experts said that TIA will be more useful for newer areas than existing ones."GHMC should introduce a system of holding public hearings when they permit big projects in any area similar to pollution control board public hearing for industries," said traffic and transportation consultant Dr T S Reddy, who is studying TIA at GVK One junction and Knowledge City in Gachibowli.
"The study taken up at GVK One in August 2016 is almost done, while the study at Knowledge City is half done. Our observation is no new constructions should be permitted in these two areas as they have reached saturation and can't take any additional load of traffic. We will use both of them as model TIA studies for drafting guidelines, which we are preparing and will submit to GHMC. We have focused on traffic to be generated due to the new buildings coming up and also how many trips will be added. We have studied 113 sites in the city and will study 25 more," Reddy explained.

Meanwhile, GHMC chief city planner S Devender Reddy said an executive order or GO is enough to modify the rules where TIA will be made mandatory for building permissions. "Recently all three police commissionarate officials met and suggested modifications for TIA rules. There is no need to amend the GHMC Act. An executive order introducing TIA in GHMC building rules will be enough. Already in multiplexes, rules for TIA exists. Now we will be introducing it for shopping malls and big residential projects too. The classification will be done based on how many vehicles are expected to ply out of the place per hour. We will finalise the TIA guidelines in a month time and get them approved," said Reddy of GHMC.