Between Telangana State Police Academy Junction and Tandur, the highway snakes through nearly 50 sharp and blind curves with black spots in more than 10 villages, including Aziznagar, Moinabad, Chevella, and Mirzaguda.
Published Nov 04, 2025 | 1:54 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 04, 2025 | 2:49 PM
A speeding truck rammed head-on into a TGRTC bus on Monday, 3 November.
Synopsis: Despite being declared a national highway in 2018, the road remains like a narrow, ribbon-like winding corridor that has claimed hundreds of lives. Over the past four years, Telangana has witnessed a worrying rise in road accidents, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau and the Telangana Transport Department.
If Telangana’s ‘Road of Blood’ has a codename, it will be NH-163.
Consider this: The 45-km stretch of the National Highway (NH) – 163 between the Police Academy and Chevalla in the Rangareddy district reported 280 fatal road accidents between 2018 and December 2024. On average, the stretch sees six to seven accidents daily.
The latest in the seemingly non-ending series of fatal accidents was reported on Monday, 3 November, when 19 people were killed and several others injured when a gravel-laden tipper lorry smashed head-on into a state-run RTC bus at Mirjaguda near Chevalla.
The accident, deadliest in recent times, brought the Hyderabad-Bijapur (Vijayapura) stretch of NH-193 into the spotlight.
For thousands of commuters and farmers who use the stretch between Telangana State Police Academy and Tandur on the national highway, danger lurks around every bend.
Despite being declared a national highway in 2018, the road remains like a narrow, ribbon-like winding corridor that has claimed hundreds of lives. Over the past four years, Telangana has witnessed a worrying rise in road accidents, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and the Telangana Transport Department.
Official studies and audit reports prepared for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways confirmed that the Hyderabad–Bijapur section (covering NH-163) recorded over 200 deaths in five years (2019–2024), with 720 accidents reported on just the 69-km Telangana State Police Academy-Tandur stretch, acknowledged as severely accident-prone.
In 2021, the state reported around 21,315 road accidents, which claimed approximately 7,557 lives. The following year, 2022, saw a marginal increase in accidents to 21,619, with fatalities remaining almost unchanged at 7,559.
The situation worsened in 2023, when Telangana recorded about 22,903 accidents — the highest in three years — resulting in 7,760 deaths. Speeding and reckless driving were cited as the leading causes behind most of these crashes, particularly on highways and district roads.
By 2024, the number of accidents had surged to 25,934, according to the latest figures released by the Transport Department. However, the number of deaths slightly declined to 7,281, suggesting that quicker emergency response and better trauma care may have saved more lives, even as road safety challenges persist.
Overall, despite various awareness campaigns and enforcement drives, Telangana continues to splash blood on highways, losing over 7,000 lives every year to road accidents — a grim reminder of the urgent need for safer road design, stricter traffic regulation, and better driver discipline across the state.
Between Telangana State Police Academy Junction and Tandur, the highway snakes through nearly 50 sharp and blind curves with black spots in more than 10 villages, including Aziznagar, Moinabad, Chevella, and Mirzaguda.
The worst-hit stretch lies between Telanana Police Academy Junction and Manneguda. There is always a heavy commuter traffic, trucks, and private buses jostle for space on a road that was never meant to handle ever-rising traffic volumes. Accidents here are so frequent — three to five every week — that locals grimly refer to it as the “Road of Blood.”
Built during the Nizam era, the Hyderabad–Bijapur route was once a royal road linking the princely state to Karnataka’s Bijapur. Today, it connects Hyderabad with Kalaburagi, Bijapur, and the tourist hub of Ananthagiri Hills.
Farmers from Vikarabad and Chevella transport their produce to city markets through this road, while thousands of employees commute to Hyderabad daily.
Yet, despite this surge in usage, no serious expansion was undertaken for decades. In 2018, the Centre declared it National Highway-163, and in 2022, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari laid the foundation stone to convert the 46.4-km Appa Junction–Manneguda stretch into a four-lane corridor at a cost of ₹785 crore.
Former BRS Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy, who represented Chevella in the past and now Maheswaram, said: “Our government was aware of the need for expansion and was about to ground the work when a change of government took place. I am not finding fault with the present government, but I want it to take up the road-widening works immediately.”
Even after land acquisition for expansion of the highway — 145.42 hectares in total — work never took off. The highway passes through several influential landholdings and farmhouses, leading to disputes and objections.
Adding to the delay, the presence of over 900 banyan trees along the route triggered an environmental petition before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which stayed the project, citing ecological concerns.
Last week, authorities assured that the trees would be relocated without harming the environment, prompting the NGT lifted the stay, finally clearing the decks for construction to begin.
Locals said they had lost count of the number of lives claimed by the curves of this unforgiving road.
“We hear the sound of blaring horns,” said a shopkeeper in Mudimyal through which the road snakes ahead. “People talk about expansion every year, but nothing changes.”
Now, with the NGT’s nod and renewed attention following the Chevella tragedy, residents hope that the long-promised widening will finally see the light of day — before more lives are lost on this deadly stretch.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
