Two months ago, Special Chief Secretary for Metropolitan Administration & Urban Development Jayesh Ranjan and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Commissioner R.V. Karnan faced a probing panel of students and professionals on urban mobility, traffic congestion and city liveability, where they struggled to answer questions about crumbling road infrastructure and the near‑absence of public transport.

Less than two months after that discussion, officials announced that the fourteen structures originally slated under the Hyderabad City Innovative and Transformative Infrastructure (H‑CITI) project – seven flyovers and seven underpasses around KBR National Park – have been dropped.

Instead, the government will construct two elevated corridors: one linking Nagarjuna Circle to Road No. 36, and another connecting Road No. 12 to Shaikpet, to ease traffic toward Madhapur, Gachibowli and the Knowledge City area.

The cancellation comes after scores of fully grown trees were felled or reduced to skeletons for the earlier plan, green median spaces were excavated for foundations, and a long stretch of road around the park was left barren, even though the project’s contractor has already drawn the first tranche of funds.

The H‑CITI scheme is an expansion of the Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP) launched a decade ago by the former Bharat Rashtra Samithi government, under which about 40 steel‑and‑concrete structures have been built at a cost exceeding ₹7,000 crore, yet public transport has been largely neglected, fueling a surge in private vehicles.

Critics note that most SRDP structures have failed to resolve congestion and have merely shifted bottlenecks, with the earlier proposal for six flyovers around KBR Park being blocked by a citizen movement that invoked the pending Eco‑Sensitive Zone demarcation.

Ironically, the one‑way traffic system imposed to accommodate the now‑scrapped structures turned out to ease gridlock without additional construction, highlighting a “no‑cost” alternative that was not considered before the costly road‑building push.

Environmental observers warn that each mature tree removed can raise local temperatures by 1‑5 °C, while concrete structures have a similar warming effect, underscoring the climate‑change implications of the abandoned plan.