Hyderabad: Despite repeated encroachment removal drives by civic authorities across Hyderabad, footpaths continue to remain occupied by shops, vendors, parked vehicles and temporary structures, leaving pedestrians with little choice but to walk on busy roads and risk their safety.
Across several parts of the city, including commercial hubs and residential colonies, footpaths meant for public use have effectively turned into extensions for shops, display areas for merchandise, parking spaces and vending zones. While authorities periodically clear these encroachments, many return within days.
For thousands of pedestrians, the situation has become a daily struggle. Shashank, a pedestrian in Sultan Bazaar, said, “We talk about flyovers and skyscrapers, but the government basically forgot the fact that people need to walk as well. There is simply no continuous walkway. Either the footpath is broken, occupied by shopkeepers or blocked by parked bikes. I literally have to wade through obstacles to walk.”
Shopkeepers defended their use of footpath space. Aditya Bansal, a shopkeeper in Monda Market said “Every shop does this to some extent. Customers need to see products from the road, or else we cannot attract them. We are not blocking the entire footpath”
Pedestrians complained that the growing number of encroachments has transformed walking into an obstacle course. Besides vendors and shop displays, construction materials, electricity poles, garbage bins and illegally parked vehicles further reduce available space.
According to the ‘Socio Economic Outlook of 2024’, released by the state government, the GHMC has a total length of 9,013 kilometres. Reports suggested that footpaths are only laid for mere 850 kilometers in GHMC, less than 10 per cent of the road length.
Civic officials said that they are regularly conducting encroachment-removal drives across the city. GHMC officials, on Saturday, removed 283 encroachments across its jurisdiction, with 204 temporary and 79 permanent structures demolished.
“From all the drives we conducted from April of this year, a total of 2,620 encroachments have been removed across GHMC”, an official said. They also said that they are maintaining a vigil over the removed encroachments to ensure the obstructions do not pop up again.
Areas like Narsingi and Manikonda, where hawkers and street-side meat and fish vendors encroached the footpaths for their businesses, saw authorities remove the tents and temporary structures. Locals said that post-removal, the hawkers did not return to those sites again.
In busy areas like Secunderabad’s Monda Market, residents and shopkeepers said that within days of removing encroachments by shopkeepers, the obstructions re-appeared.
Authorities requested shopkeepers and citizens to not encroach footpaths and roads, and warned that if found to be encroaching or creating inconvenience for pedestrians and vehicular movements, the encroachments and obstructions will be removed by the department.
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