Malkajgiri residents meet with railway officials; request re-opening of Safilguda gate

Hyderabad: On Tuesday, the executive committee members of various colony associations in Malkajgiri, along with Malkajgiri GHMC corporator Vurapalli Sravan, met Lokesh Vishnoi, division manager (DRM) of Hyderabad Division, South Central Railway, to discuss the recent Safilguda railway gate closure issue.

Sravan explained the railway gate closure issue in detail and submitted the letters of Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy, addressed to GM, South Central Railway, which in turn were marked by SCR GM for action to the engineering department on this issue, to Lokesh Vishnoi.

Closed gate increased travel time

The closure of the Safilguda railway gate has caused a great deal of inconvenience to the residents of the various colonies. It has increased the travel distance by three kilometres, and around 6,000 families living between the Safilguda railway gate and the Ramakrishanpuram flyover have been affected. The gate was closed in 2021 due to safety concerns and the residents have been facing difficulties in commuting ever since.

The RWAs team explained to Lokesh Vishnoi about the difficulties caused to over one and half lakh residents of various colonies like Balaram Nagar, West Krishna Nagar, Sitaram Nagar, Devi Nagar, Sainik Nagar, RK Puram Village, Adarsh Nagar, LB Nagar, Siddhartha Nagar, New Vidyanagar colony who use Safilguda railway gate, highlighting the difficulties in using the very narrow and accident-prone existing road leading to Uttam Nagar RUB.

A draft proposing a RUB near Safilguda railway gate, prepared by RWAs as a solution to this issue, was shown to Vishnoi. They requested him to visit the site to have a firsthand understanding of the issue.

Vishnoi responded positively and took all the inputs from RWA representatives and held a detailed discussion with Mallikarjun, senior divisional engineer-coordination, Hyderabad Division Engineering department, who had also participated in the meeting.

Mallikarjun, while explaining the ground situation, said that this work can be executed once they receive RUB alignment approval from the GHMC and that he has already written to the GHMC and is in touch with GHMC Projects SE Ravinder Raju for a joint inspection.

Lokesh promised the RWAs representatives that he would take necessary action and could take up the work under the Gati Shakti scheme. BT Srinivasan, general secretary of the United Federation of Resident Welfare Associations (U-FERWAS) and others were also present at the meeting.