💬 The footpath near Ameerpet metro is gone by 7 every morning

By 7 in the morning the footpath near Ameerpet metro is gone. Not broken, just gone under stuff. Fruit carts, tea stalls, clothes laid out on plastic sheets, a guy with an idli trolley, someone setting out bangles on a cloth. So everyone walks on the road, with buses and autos passing close enough to brush your bag. A guy who works near Punjagutta told me he's stopped trying the footpath at all. "Faster on the road," he said. "At least there you can see what's coming." I get the vendors' side too. A lady who sells vegetables near Erragadda has been there twelve years. She rents a small room in Borabanda and that bit of footpath is her whole shop. "If they remove us, where do we go? We're not stealing, we're working." Hard to argue with that. But then there's the old aunty near S R Nagar with a walking stick who can't get past the carts, and parents walking kids to school right next to the traffic, gripping their hands the whole way. Every now and then GHMC clears the stretch, usually right before some inspection. For a few days you can see the pavement again. Then one cart comes back. Then ten. Then the whole line, like nothing happened. So where exactly is someone on foot supposed to walk?

The aunty with the walking stick is the part that stays with me. Most of us don't think about it until it's our own parent trying to get past.

The clearing right before an inspection is so predictable. Two clean days, a few photos, and everyone's back by the weekend. There's been a law for this since 2014, proper vending zones and all, it just never seems to reach Ameerpet. Give them a marked spot and keep one side clear for walking. That would do more than ten of these drives.