Motorists passing through a road that got heavily damaged due to continuous rains during the past few days, at Parvath Nagar, in Madhapur, Hyderabad, on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL
The Comprehensive Road Maintenance Programme (CRMP), which had seen effective maintenance of the city roads for five years ending 2025, does not seem to find a way out of the drawing board for its second phase despite heavy damage to the roads during current monsoons.
Revisions after revisions are delaying the programme which seeks to hand over the maintenance of certain major road stretches to private agencies for five years.
Initially introduced in 2020 during the BRS regime, CRMP, during its first phase, covered over 800 kilometres of major road length at a cost of ₹1,300 crore. Though estimated to cost ₹1827 crore, several components which had been part of the agreement were later removed due to reluctance of the agencies, bringing down the cost. Instead of them, mechanical road sweeping was introduced as a sole additional component.
However, for Phase-II, the components which were removed earlier, were added again, together with additional road length. A total 1,142 kilometres of major roads and approach roads numbering 934 were part of the package, with an estimated cost of a whopping ₹3,825 crore. The additional components aside from road maintenance were construction of storm water drains, deployment of monsoon emergency teams, maintenance of greenery, and de-silting of the storm water drains.
While the first phase was entirely financed by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation through borrowings, for the second phase, the proposals were sent to the government seeking funding. Caught in severe financial crisis after change of regime in 2023 elections, the State government was not in any mood to part with the funding required for the programme, prompting GHMC to revise the proposals.
Accordingly, shorn of all the additional components, proposals for bare road maintenance were prepared with an estimated cost component of ₹2,828 crore.
Members of the GHMC’s standing committee, when presented with the revised proposals, were reportedly not pleased with removal of mechanical sweeping, which involved hiring of mechanised road sweeping vehicles.
Upon insistence of the standing committee, the GHMC has prepared another set of proposals, increasing the cost by ₹317 crore for road sweeping. They will be sent to the government for approval, officials informed.
Published – October 08, 2025 12:56 am IST
