GHMC to relocate 34 shrines

HYDERABAD: With some religious structures causing traffic snarls on arterial roads and earlier directions from the AP High Court, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to relocate 34 structures in the next three months.
An action plan has been prepared for 100 days for shifting these 34 places of worship. GHMC officials said 10 structures each in west zone and north zone, seven in south zone, two in east zone and five in central zone of the corporation were identified for relocation.
The town planning wing officials have begun negotiations with committees overseeing places of worship and local religious leaders to convince them for relocations.
"At least at five locations, relocations of places of worship are under stages of finalisation, including a major bottleneck in the central zone," GHMC additional commissioner (Development Planning) K Dhananjaya Reddy told TOI on Monday.
If the 34 religious structures are moved, there would be smooth flow of traffic on these roads.
The GHMC is offering development of another structure by the side of the road, including land at the same location as per designs provided by the committees of place of worship.
The GHMC had identified 621 places of worship on 80 roads in the city and submitted a list to the AP High Court. In the first phase 25 structures, second phase 86 structures and the rest 510 structures were to be shifted in the third phase.
In the first phase, religious structures, which had come up recently without any permanent base, were to be moved. In the second phase, structures which had semi-permanent base and which could be relocated with a little persuasion with religious leaders were to be shifted. In the third phase, structures which were built years ago with permanent buildings were to be relocated.
Of the 621 places of worship, 93 structures are located in Circle 4 and another 90 in Circle 5, both in Old City. There are 72 places of worship on roads in circle 9 areas like Domalguda, Musheerabad, Narayanaguda, Vidyanagar and Chikkadpally. Surrounding circles like L B Nagar, Alwal and Qutubullapur have 52, 25 and 27 religious places on roads respectively. In Secunderabad circle, 36 religious structures were identified by the corporation.
The corporation assured the High Court that the religious structures on roads would be removed by July 2010 in a phased manner. However, they could not concentrate on it due to processing of Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS) and Layout Penalisation Schemes (LRS) applications.
"Since relocation of religious structures is a sensitive issue, the corporation is going slow on shifting them," the additional commissioner said.