A tale of four cities: Hyderabadis don’t have boundaries

Hyderabad: When borders have become frontiers, and barriers have become bridges, the twin cities of Hyderabad have grown manifold – now into four cities.

The city that metamorphosed, passing through many phases of expansion, is assuming a new shape altogether under the Congress Government led by A Revanth Reddy.

While the fourth one – the Bharat Future City -- is still evolving, new municipal corporations were created trifurcating the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). The three cities are now the GHMC, Malkajgiri Municipal Corporation and Cyberabad Municipal Corporation. For the first time, four separate police commissionerates were created conterminous with their respective urban local bodies.

Cantonment excision awaited

And, there is a huge urban local body in the form of Secunderabad Cantonment, whose excision from the control of military establishment under the control of Defence Estates of the Government of India is widely discussed and demanded too. Aren’t the people in the areas of the Secunderabad Cantonment not ‘Hyderabadis’? They, indeed, are, like those living in Abids or Koti or Banjara Hills.

The process is still in a limbo, though some decks have been cleared by the Government of India for the excision of the Cantonment and merger of the areas in the surrounding urban local bodies. Initially, that major urban local body with which the merger of the Cantonment was proposed was perceived to be the GHMC.

Now that two more municipal corporations have been created, it could be merged with all three, based on the geographical and administrative convenience – if and when the excision and merger would be brought into effect.

However, the Cantonment area is tagged to all the three police commissionerates, based on their geographical positioning.

While the four cities present a promising picture, the core issues of urban amenities, problems like cleanliness, sanitation, streetlighting, menace of dogs, mosquitoes, solid waste management, and traffic management find no reprieve.

What the new civic bodies hold forth for the denizens will become critical in the years to come.

How has Hyderabad transformed over decades?

Several municipalities and municipal corporations were created, merged, again separated and again merged and again separated within the urban agglomeration area of Hyderabad – the Capital city of Telangana, which is also the fifth largest metropolitan in India from times immemorial.

The process has been evolving since 1985, ever since 12 peripheral municipalities were created in 1985 during the regime of N T Rama Rao as the Chief Minister. It’s now 40 years and city’s political boundaries have been changing from time to time.

Most people are confused, if not perplexed, as to which city they belong to and which police commissionerate their habitations are covered under.

Hyderabad, historically, has been popularly known as the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad for ages, while the rest are all political boundaries created in the name of administrative convenience.

While HUDA became HMDA; the people were pushed into a self-consolation mode - rather than consolidation - what with the fact that they all belong to Hyderabad, considering the urban agglomeration area under the HMDA. Now there is an up-and-coming sister to HMDA in the form of Future City Development Authority (FCDA).

Municipal administration has become that much complex over the years.

From flux to flexibility

The actions driven by political thought processes by successive governments have surely pushed the denizens of Hyderabad (all that is within and around it) into a state of flux, as they are not sure as to what would the shape of their city be and the changing frontiers after 10-15 years.

However, the people have always been adaptable to the changes that effectively changed the larger civic body boundaries of the places or areas they have been inhabiting for centuries. The citizens demonstrated an uncanny flexibility to own up the newer urban local bodies that have been carved out with several newer areas coming up with the city’s massive growth on all directions – maybe in an unwieldy manner – over many decades.

Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH)

• Year of formation: 1955 through Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955
• It was created on October 2, 1955, by merging:
• The Hyderabad Municipality
• The Secunderabad Municipality

This is the first unified civic body merging the twin cities.

• Area: Approximately 217 square kilometres covering

• Hyderabad city
• Secunderabad
• Cantonment-excluded civilian areas
• Core urban localities

With the first major expansion of the city limits in 1960, with the merger of adjoining suburban localities and villages, the area increased to around 360 sq. km. This gave an impetus to the growth of the city on all directions.

Eventually, the Government of Andhra Pradesh created a the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA in 1975) to give a fillip to the growth of the city in a planned manner, covering the MCH area and the surrounding areas in and around Hyderabad’s metropolitan area, ranging from 1,348 sq. km to 1,864 sq. km.

The HUDA began to prepare master plans for the city and is tasked with zoning, land use regulation and layout approvals.

12 municipalities in NTR Regime

In 1985, the Andhra Pradesh Government under N T Rama Rao upgraded many growing grama panchayats around Hyderabad into 12 municipalities for managing rapid urban expansion around Hyderabad with better civic administration. With a view to reducing the burden on the MCH, a few areas within the city limits were merged into the peripheral municipalities adjacent to those respective areas.

The municipalities created in 1985 were: L.B. Nagar, Quthbullapur, Kukatpally, Uppal, Alwal, Malkajgiri, Kapra, Serilingampally, Rajendranagar, Patancheru, Gaddiannaram, and Ramachandrapuram.

The city began deriving the benefits of the 1991 Economic Reforms of the Government of India under P V Narasimha Rao by year 1995.

Hitec City in Cyberabad under Chandrababu Naidu

N Chandrababu Naidu, as the Chief Minister, got tech behemoth Microsoft to open its first office outside Redmond in the USA in Hyderabad. This led the Naidu Government to earmark huge tracts of land for the Raheja Mindspace, Cyber Towers. Eventually, this resulted in the development of HITEC (Hyderabad Information Technology and Economic Consultation) City.

Chandrababu Naidu was fond of this newly developing area including Madhapur, Kondapur, and Gachibowli. Several IT companies made a beeline and the area became a beehive of activity.

At this point in time, Naidu, who had christened the area as Cyberabad, created Cyberabad police commissionerate by merging many areas under the Ranga Reddy district police.

GHMC, Intl airport, ORR, Financial Dt under YSR

In 2007, the Congress Government under Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy merged the 12 municipalities and eight other grama panchayats into the MCH and formed Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

This catapulted Hyderabad into a different league and fetched the status of an A-1 metro city in India along with Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. This led to a greater economic activity. Employees under all government and public sectors and those in the private sector governed by the Government of India rules began earning an enhanced House Rent Allowance (HRA) that moved from 20 per cent to 30 per cent of their basic pay.

Parallelly, Dr Reddy took up the construction of India’s first greenfield international airport at Shamshabad, the construction of 167-km Outer Ring Road for the city, the creation of Financial District and many international companies continued to set up their offices in Hyderabad. The airport and the first phase of 26 km road between Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and Kondapur were completed during his regime. One of the longest flyovers in India, the 11-km-long P V Narasimha Rao Express Way, as the first approach to the airport was built in a record time during this time. The city’s growth trajectory soared further.

This was when he had expanded the urban agglomeration area by setting up Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority in 2008, including the HUDA area and Hyderabad district, Ranga Reddy district, Medchal, Sangareddy, Yadadri and Vikarabad.

The Outer Ring Road (ORR) turned out to be the spine of the structural growth of the city.

A 69-km Hyderabad Metro Rail was planned and commenced work.

Amazon, Apple, Cable Bridge under KCR

With the formation of Telangana in 2014, the TRS Government under K Chandrashekar Rao announced that it wanted to make Hyderabad a Global City. Efforts were made in that direction with the construction of tens of flyovers, underpasses, a cable-stayed bridge across Durgam Cheruvu, and the West Zone of the GHMC got a special focus. Several IT companies and large corporations like Amazon (its world’s biggest campus in in Hyderabad), Google, Apple, Uber have all set up their operations in Hyderabad and are expanding. Microsoft and Amazon set up some of their biggest data centres in the city.

The areas of HITEC City and Financial District wore a new modern look akin to downtowns in world’s famous cities.

The KCR Government created seven municipalities in 2016 within Hyderabad and upgraded them into municipal corporations in 2019. They include: Badangpet, Bandlaguda Jagir, Meerpet-Jillelguda, Boduppal, Peerzadiguda, Jawaharnagar and Nizampet.

The TRS/BRS Government also created Rachakonda police commissionerate covering LB Nagar, Vanasthalipuram, Neredmet, areas and some parts of old Nalgonda and Ranga Reddy districts were annexed to it.

The KCR regime also created many municipalities in and around Hyderabad, but did not reduce the GHMC area. These municipalities included: Kompally, Dundigal, Pocharam, Adibatla, Shamshabad, Pedda Amberpet, Shadnagar, Medchal, Ghatkesar, Ibrahimpatnam, Thumkunta, Turkapally, Amangal and Yacharam.

The last stretch of 167-km ORR was completed making it fully operational.

The HMR was implemented and operationalised by KCR Government.

GHMC trifurcation in line with CURE, 4 police commissionerates under Revanth Reddy

Revanth Reddy has begun to implement much bigger plans he has been nursing for the city. First of all, he has ideated the Bharat Future City and created an administrative unit of FCDA which finalised the contours of the new urban establishment. Pushing the concept of Young India, the Chief Minister is working on the establishment of Young India Skills University, Young India Sports University, and many other activities in the area identified under this place and wants to showcase it as the most ultramodern newest city powered by latest technology-driven infrastructure.

Accordingly, the Chief Minister created a Police Commissionerate for the Future City. Later, merging Rachakonda police commissionerate, the Telangana Government created three police commissionerates – Hyderabad (GHMC area), Malkajgiri (Malkajgiri Municipal Corporation area) and Cyberabad (Cyberabad Municipal Corporation area).

In tune with his latest Telangan Rising 2047 plan, the Chief Minister trifurcated the GHMC into three cities within the periphery of the ORR as a Core Urban Region Economy (CURE). Telangana is further segregated into Peri urban Region Economy (PURE) in the area between the ORR and the proposed Regional Ring Road, and Rural Agricultural Region Economy (RARE).

With the elected general body’s term of office of the GHMC coming to an end, all the three municipal corporations were brought under the rule of a special officer. Special Chief Secretary Jayesh Ranjan is made the new special officer.

The booster doses for the growth are administered with an accelerated speed. Hyderabad achieved the rare distinction of becoming the World’s headquarters becoming home for the highest number of Global Capability Centres (GCCs), for most of the Fortune 500 companies. Some marquee names like Eli Lily, Amgen, Vanguard and McDonald, apart from those already operating from the city make Hyderabad hold its head high in this space.