How India moves: Andhra’s port city of Vizag faces problems of bad civic and transport planning, besides a challenging topography

The picturesque Andhra Pradesh port city of Vizag aka Visakhapatnam, surrounded by verdant hills, was once considered a pensioner’s paradise. But it is currently beset by problems typical of a growing city.

Thus, like its counterparts across India, it currently has transport and pollution issues and citizens suffer from them, courtesy the lack of foresight by the powers that be.

K Ramana, a cab driver for 37 years, told Down To Earth (DTE), “People are flocking to the city for livelihood. The population would have increased further if the city had become capital of Andhra Pradesh after the formation of Telangana. Traffic jams are less but vehicles have increased manifold over the years. Today’s Vizag is a business hub and stretches 30 kilometres (km) from one end to the other.”  

C H Mahesh, who runs a hotel near KGH Hospital, travels 33 km from Tagarapu valasa to his workplace. “As buses are jam-packed, there is no place to even stand. How can I travel in them after working from 7.30 am to 8 pm? So, I opted to travel by scooter. Buses should be increased in peak hours to enable commuters to get seats. If a Metro service is launched, it will be good if it reduces travel time,” he said.

A Rajendra, an employee at a private firm, said peak hour traffic in Vizag is between 7.30 am to 9 am in the morning. “This is when students go to engineering colleges on the city’s outskirts and intermediate colleges within Vizag, causing congestion. The timings of these colleges should be staggered to avoid the jams. Autorickshaws stop everywhere and contribute to this mess.”

Bicycle riders in the city said apart from the undulating terrain in a few parts, they have to endure apathy and lack of traffic sense while driving by two-wheeler and even autorickshaw drivers. “They fail to understand that a cyclist has to use his energy all over again to pick up momentum. So having a separate lane for bicycles will not help as it will be occupied by two- wheelers and others, unless they are sensitised and commuters learn to respect the space for cyclists and pedestrians,” Manoj Vooka, from the Coastal Cruisers Cycling Club in the city, told DTE.

Techie Vooka travels to work in an Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) bus from the Jagadamba centre in the city to the Vizag Infosys office on the outskirts. His fellow traveller at the stop is A Madhu, from Cyient Technologies. “Why can’t they extend the service to all by increasing the number of buses. Autos charge Rs 200 to Rs 250 from the campus to reach the city,” Madhu asked.

Not surprisingly, the above situation is courtesy the reduction in the number of city bus schedules by the APSRTC to 541 in 2024-25, from 608 in 2015-16. This, even as the city population has grown.  

“Owing to shortage of buses, some colonies which we served earlier are not being covered now. The nearest main bus stop is around five kilometres for them. The current manager, we are told, has sought allocation of more buses. Buses were reduced to areas like Andhra University over the years, as they are used by students who avail passes and bring in less revenue. Sometimes even 150 board our buses in the peak hours,” said Pilla Sankar, district secretary from the National Mazdoor Union.

His fellow union leader Chinna Appadu, from the Staff and Workers Union, added, “If the outskirts are included, city buses are serving 3.2 million people including the nearly 2 million who reside in the city. The ticket rates in the electric buses to be introduced will, in all likelihood, be higher. They are being given to private players by providing a subsidy of Rs 70 lakh per electric bus by the Centre. Why can’t the APSTRC be given those buses by recruiting more personnel? Telangana has called for applications from private conductors and Andhra could follow suit.”

Tackling Vizag’s transport woes

Dwelling on the attempts made to manage traffic better in the city, Sohan Hatangadi from the Greater Visakhapatnam Citizens Forum told DTE, “A BRTS (Bus Rapid Transit System) corridor that was planned, didn’t take off and has been a failure. The corridor is being used by cars now. Political will to implement it was not there. Now, electric buses are sought to be launched. While they will help cut pollution, they won’t help people in terms of reducing their traffic woes. There are plans to make autorickshaws go electric.”

His fellow activist Vivek Rathod highlighted the lack of parking lots and informed that the traffic police is only interested in collecting fines and act like they have monthly targets. 

“Vehicles are towed away by them when parked. Hawkers occupy footpaths and when someone complains they act on it for a few days. Some foot paths were constructed as part of the smart city project but ducts which should drain the water from the roads are not cleaned properly. This leads to flooding of roads making them cesspools when it rains hindering traffic,” he said.

S Ramakrishna Rao, retired professor at the civil engineering college in Andhra University said, “Although a few ‘No Parking’ sign boards are installed on a few major roads such as Beach Road and Rama Talkies Road, parking rules are hardly enforced. The existing facilities created by the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) and the Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority are hardly utilised to their full potential. The road inventory survey reveals that the entire city has approximately 77 km of footpaths that either exist or are being constructed. Of this, 40 km are part of the two BRT corridors in the city. None of these footpaths have been provided with disabled-friendly access. While 50 per cent of the footpaths are discontinuous, 20 per cent are mostly encroached by parking and shopkeepers along the road. Only 30 per cent of the footpaths are without any encroachments.”

He added even these footpaths are not completely pedestrian-friendly because they are mostly concrete blocks placed to cover the sewer lines below. They are 180-200 millimetres (mm) above the road surface and there are occasional gaps between the concrete blocks, making them uncomfortable to the users.  

Rao advocated a fair understanding of parking demand and supply by dividing the entire city into three zones — central business district, major corridors and rest of the city. “The initial zones should have restrictive parking availability with high pricing and for the rest of the city different parking zones should be created. Subdivide the city into multiple parking districts — the parking district shall be the main unit for administering parking regulations and management. Each parking district shall comprise the entire street network — including streets with no parking and paid parking, as well as off-street parking in the vicinity. The management of on-street as well as off-street parking in any particular district shall be managed by a single operator,” he added.

On the redesign of traffic junctions, he said, “The impetus was to make them pedestrian- friendly by integrating barrier-free infrastructure through better geometric design in order to improve junction efficiency, minimise congestion, ensure equity in road space allocation, ensure a designed draft parking policy framework and parking action plan for Beach Road. The parking action plan is strongly linked with overarching different transport policies, various plans and documents, parking objectives and travel characteristics of Vizag.”

D Mukund Rao, head of the civil engineering department at Gitam University, said Vizag’s growth around the Grand Trunk Road, which was upgraded into National Highway 16, is a major cause of gridlocks. “The traffic which moves to the Gangavaram and Visakhapatnam ports also has to move through the city. If the vehicles wish to avoid going into the city and take the newly laid bypass road, they nevertheless need to touch the city. There is a need to have more official parking spots in the city where one can be charged for parking beyond half an hour.”

Mukund Rao is part of the district road safety committee which is convened by the deputy transport commissioner and chaired by the district collector once every two months. “The committee is evaluating traffic bottlenecks regularly. All departments concerned partake in the reviews which happen regularly. This is also mandated by a Supreme Court judgement in 2022. Spots which witness accidents are identified and a joint team visits them to zero in on the reasons. Synchronisation of traffic signals is underway now. This was delayed as the signals were procured from two different vendors earlier. Once they are installed, travel time will be reduced.”

He pegged the increase in vehicular addition on the city roads at seven to eight per cent per year.

Plans are underway to launch a Metro rail system in the city of nearly 1.8 to 2million residents at a cost of around Rs 14,000 crore. This, observers say, will not be viable as even Hyderabad’s system has not become sustainable despite years of availing viability gap funding. Hyderabad is home to 11 million people.

Polluted paradise

Vizag is flanked by hills on three sides — the Yarada hill range in the south, Simhachalam in the north and Kailasagiri on the northeast. The Bay of Bengal borders it on the east, nestling the city in a spoon-shaped basin, which is often called ‘Bowl Area’ for assessment of environmental-related issues.

The hills range between 300 to 500 metres from the mean sea level. So, air gets largely trapped in this area. The heights of industrial chimneys in the area are restricted as Vizag is home to a naval air base. The air getting trapped in the hills, the effect of sea winds and entrapping of pollutants due to release from low chimney heights mean Vizag has a major air pollution problem for eight to nine months in a year.

The natural wind direction in the city is from the southwest where industries like HPCL, IOCL, Essar and the port are located. To the northeast are the residential areas.

Phaneender Ketha, a senior pulmonologist who treats industrial workers, has observed more cases of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) over the years in Vizag’s industrial belt. This, he said, is leading to problems like asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, pneumonia and lung infections. “Lung infections damage the mucociliary blanket. Visakhapatnam is a coastal city. The humidity level is higher, which leads to settling of air pollutants at the ground level. This is hazardous to health. The fact that there is only one monitoring point to measure pollution that is too close to the industrial zone is also a factor which cannot be overlooked when comparing different cities.”

International Labour Organization norms mandate that histo-pathological tests be conducted to all those with lung infections from industrial zones. The tests are to be done to zero in on the pollutant responsible for a particular disease but is seldom followed.

Can Vizag clean itself up?

A moratorium on new projects in Vizag was imposed by the Union Ministry of Environment, and Forests (MOEF) on January 13, 2010,  

New projects were banned, as was expansion of existing ones in the ‘Bowl Area’ (between the Yarada hill range in the south, the Simhachalam hill range in the north, the sea on the east and the present NH-5 in the west).

This was done after a study by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2009 identified Vizag as a critically polluted area, with a Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) score of 70.82.

CEPI is a rational number to characterise the environmental quality at a given location. It is based on three factors namely pollutants, pathway and receptor. Increasing value of CEPI indicates severe adverse effects on the environment and is also an indication of a large percentage of the population experiencing health hazards. A CEPI score more than 70 is considered a critically polluted area (CPA). CEPI is calculated separately for air, water and land.

CEPI was evolved by the CPCB, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.

The moratorium was lifted after the CEPI fell from 70.82 to 44.74 on November 12, 2018. The change came after the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) implemented measures prescribed by the CPCB and the CEPI for the city was declared as 44.74 by the environment ministry. The CPCB updated the CEPI status on Nov 16, 2022 on their website and currently, Vizag is not covered under CPA or a Severally Polluted area.

Sheds were constructed to ward off dust from coal sheds in the port after many protests. Trucks which carry coal have to pass through the city and trains carrying coal are being covered now, according to Hatangadi.

The state government recently answered queries in the Assembly on the steps being taken by it to prevent pollution in Vizag.

It conceded that while it had taken steps in consonance with the CPCB, the achievement had been clouded by a huge expansion of industries in the city. The CPCB has identified Vizag along with 12 other cities as ‘Non-Attainment Cities In Andhra Pradesh’ for air quality improvement as particulate matter levels exceed national standards (60 micrograms per cubic metre).

The government further added that APPCB, in coordination with CPCB and with concerned stakeholder departments like GVMC, district administration, transport department, industries and civil supplies department had prepared action plans to curtail air pollution levels in Vizag under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). The government, CPCB and APPCB have been closely monitoring the implementation of the approved action plan by all concerned stakeholder departments.

Andhra University in Vizag has been awarded a source apportionment study to identify the sources and respective pollution contribution in detail so that further remedial measures can be taken to reduce pollution levels in the city.

Apportionate studies are underway to determine the sources and the extent of their contribution to pollution in Vizag, said P V Mukund Rao, senior environmental engineer at the APPCB regional office in Vizag.

The government through APPCB, along with monitoring the industries periodically through real time monitoring systems and physical inspections, is planning for an environment audit system of the industries, it informed.

This article is part of our series on how India moves, which looks at the relationship between air quality and human mobility in cities and towns.