Telangana Unveils Township Policy to Decongest Hyderabad

To decongest the city and promote planned development, the state government has decided to encourage integrated development of townships, abutting the Outer Ring Road (ORR) in Hyderabad Metropolitan Region (HMR), with private and public initiatives. After cabinet approval, the municipal administration and urban development (MA&UD) department released ‘Telangana Comprehensive Integrated Township Policy Rules 2020’ on Tuesday. The city’s development is concentrated only in certain pockets — mostly eastern and western parts — resulting in congestion and overburdened infrastructure. The policy promotes the idea of ‘walk to work’ in the forms of townships. “The proposed township project has to be an integrated and mixed purpose with residential, commercial, educational (at least up to class 10), healthcare facilities, roads, internal public transport like electric vehicles, amenity spaces, greenery in the layout and public utilities,” Arvind Kumar, Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration Department said. Even in the new Municipalities Act, the government made provisions to develop self-contained townships. According to urban planners, the present density of population of the core city is around 11,000 people per square km, and it will reach 20,000 per sq km in the next few years, following Gurugram. This they say will lead to haphazard growth of the city. Township policy and satellite townships have on the cards for the past one decade. In the 2013 master plan, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) had proposed to encourage satellite townships abutting the ORR. A township was proposed by Tellapur Techno-city project in 2007. The developers purchased 400 acres of land from the HMDA. But due to problems, it was reduced to 100 acres. Even that project got stuck due to various reasons. The new policy aims to address all such issues. “The new townships can be developed not only abutting ORR, but also other municipal corporations like Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Ramagundam corporations,” a MA&UD official said. CM K Chandrasekhar Rao asked the water board to plan a water supply network along ORR.