Hyderabad: In Hyderabad’s Old City, walking on a footpath is an afterthought. People have gotten used to being in a sort of “survival mode” when on the road, walking through speeding traffic, trash and filthy water as vendors, urinators, homeless people and construction equipment take up space meant for pedestrians.
In most areas, footpaths are few and far between. Pedestrians dodge traffic even in the narrowest lanes and walk shoulder to shoulder with trucks and buses in others.
Then there are lanes obstructed by residents’ parked vehicles or store displays. Pedestrians like Rahul Reddy in Azampura are no stranger to this. “The footpaths are not clear in many places because of vendors and parked vehicles. We are often forced to walk on the road, which is unsafe. During rains, waterlogging makes the situation worse,” Reddy told Siasat.com.
Salifa Khanam, who walks her children to tuition through the area, worries about their safety. “I can’t leave my children alone, so I have to take this route every day. If there was a proper footpath, I would not have to worry so much about their safety. Vendors selling fruits, flowers and other items have occupied the footpaths,” she said.
And she would not be wrong to worry. Three months ago, on June 19, the Supreme Court, hearing the case of a five-year-old who was hit by a tanker on his way to school, ruled that “walking on a demarcated footpath” was a fundamental right.
Walking integral to life: Supreme Court
The top court noted that it was necessary for us to rid our minds of the idea that “right to move” only meant movement on wheels since we started walking long before wheels were put on our path.
A bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice AS Chandurkar observed that our urban planning has prioritised vehicle movement over pedestrian movement. They added that the root might be elitism: machines with wheels were at first only for the rich, but as vehicles got more accessible, they took up more space until walkers became a “nuisance.”
While declaring that walking on footpaths was a fundamental right under Article 19(1) (d) and Article 21, the court noted that unlike other rights (sustenance, education and information), no legislation existed to enforce this one, and urged the government to lay down a statutory framework and appoint a regulator.
Public not eager to take their rights back
However, the very public the Supreme Court is worried about seems not keen to take back their rights. They have started sympathising with the encroaching vendors, seem doubtful if the street they walk on should even have a footpath or just don’t expect any better.
“Hyderabad has 50 to 60-year-old infrastructure which has not been upgraded in a very long time. They will have to widen the roads to make a footpath but that will require them to remove the shops. We should think about their livelihood as well,” Kondal Rao, a 30-year-old who had come to shop at Begum Bazaar, told Siasat.com.
Asked if people should be inconvenienced for businesses, he said, “It is true that people are inconvenienced, I have also experienced how difficult it gets to walk here during festival times, but this is a marketplace. Who will come here if there are no shops?”
“The government takes taxes from the customer as well as the business. Maybe they should think of development in a way that can balance the needs of both,” he added.
For Rajni, a 34-year-old beautician who travels across the city for bookings, a footpath seemed to be a landmark of sorts. “Who says there is no footpath? There is one near the hospital (Osmania General Hospital) in Afzalgunj,” she said.
Development or livelihoods?
Not everyone is in the same boat as Kondal. Ganesh, who runs Dilip cooldrinks at Begum Bazaar, prioritises development over his spot in the market. He said a “master plan” is in the works to widen Begum Bazaar’s roads by relocating many shops. “People will get compensated if their shop ends up being razed. I am okay if it happens to my shop as well. Just because you are scared, you cannot stop development,” he said.
However, Ganesh also has other properties where he can open up his business, which might be a factor in his optimism. A fruit vendor on the side of the road in Azampura, on the other hand, doesn’t feel as secure. “I have been selling fruits here to earn a living. We do not intend to trouble pedestrians, but this is where we get customers,” Abdul said, urging authorities to give him a better place to do business.
Enforcement results disappearing in one day
But would forcing people like Abdul to vacate solve the problem?
On July 2, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) carried out a demolition drive from Madina to Puranapul. At the time, some people told the media they had not been given prior intimation, while others said local MLA Mir Zulfeqar Ali had told them a day earlier to push back their stalls from the footpath.
Videos taken that day show empty streets, broken stairs and torn-down canopies. Nearly two months later, on August 30, the same streets are jam-packed and the space that the demolition drive should have cleared is nowhere to be found.
Several shop owners told Siasat.com they had no idea why the demolition had been carried out. “If it were for footpaths, why tear down our canopies? What benefit is that to anyone walking on the road? We now have to spend Rs 15,000 if we want to put them back,” one shop owner at Madina, who did not wish to be named, told Siasat.com.
Others said the operation was a “one-day thing” and everything went back to how it was the very next day. “The traffic isn’t less, and it hasn’t made it any easier for people to walk,” said another shop owner, who also did not want to be named.
Not just availability, but also maintenance
Where footpaths do exist, filth and broken tiles often make them unusable.
Ramesh, a carpenter who uses the footpath at Chaderghat bridge while returning home from work, faces this daily. “I use this footpath every day, but the broken tiles and open gaps make it difficult to walk. During the rainy season, the surface becomes slippery and there is always a fear of slipping or falling,” he said. “Garbage dumped along the stretch and carts occupying parts of the footpath make it even harder to move around,” he added.
The problem was also observed at Dabeerpura bridge, used frequently by Asra Begum. “Pedestrians are forced to navigate around the damaged portions, making the walk unsafe,” she told Siasat.com. Hajera faces the same in the Darulshifa–Purani Haveli area. “The footpath is already difficult to use because bikes are parked on it and vendors occupy the space,” she said.
Construction material left on footpaths for months is another problem. “Construction work has left gravel, sand and debris piled up along the footpath near Chadau Ki Masjid, leaving no clear space to walk,” said Anwar, a pedestrian in Yakutpura.
So did Shameem Begum in Jahanuma. “Many under-construction buildings are using footpaths to keep bricks, sand and other construction materials. This blocks the entire walking space, forcing pedestrians to walk on the road,” she said.
Any solution?
Roja, a non-resident Indian (NRI) who came to shop at Laad Bazaar, said strict fines in New Jersey discourage littering. “People urinate wherever they feel like it. That doesn’t happen in New Jersey. There’s a USD 250 fine if the police see you. But in India, people have that much freedom.”
Sanjana, a 16-year-old from Chennai who has visited Hyderabad twice on school/college trips, noticed a lack of public toilets. “There are not as many public restrooms in Hyderabad as compared to Chennai, I’ve observed,” she said. It might point to another solution for footpaths, which are often used as a substitute for washrooms.
(Reporting by Saleha Fatima, Sameer Khan and Sakina Fatima)
(This is part 2 in a six-part series focusing on Hyderabad’s footpaths and pedestrian infrastructure. Click to read Part 1)
