Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Cyberabad, and now Futurabad : Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

 Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Cyberabad, 

and now Futurabad

Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

The Hans India (07-12-2025)

{While broad roads, familiar faces, and a leisurely pace defined life in the good old days, over time, Cyberabad rose with HITEC City and Gachibowli, turning the capital into a ‘tri-city’ of over 650 sq km under GHMC limits that boast of nearly one crore people. HMDA covers more than 7,000 sq km, encompasses the metropolitan region, including mandals, and villages surrounding the city}-Synoptic Note by Editor, The Hans India

Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy laid the foundation for the ‘Bharat Future City’ on September 28, 2025, at Meerkhanpet in Kandukur Mandal, where ‘The Telangana Rising 2047- Global Summit’ is planned on December 8 and 9.

He conceptualized Future City as India's first net-zero urban space. Future City Development Authority has been formed. It would be a global hub for business and innovation, integrating economic growth with ecological preservation, where people can live, work, learn, and play. Industrial parks, residential areas, specialized clusters for AI, and life sciences form part of Future City. ‘Bharat Future City’ will be a value addition to Hyderabad.

Hyderabad is known for its rich cultural heritage, exceptionally wonderful climate, and safe seismologic zone. The city is the destination for international conferences, like The Telangana Rising 2047- Global Summit. Having lived in the 434-year-old Hyderabad City for over six decades, I am awe struck and amazed at the scale of its development overtime, which added to its elegance.   

The City has an award winning international standard airport. Large Number of Multinational IT companies are located in Hyderabad. It is globally known health hub and medical tourism center. Patients from Africa, Middle East and even USA come for treatment in Multi and Super Specialty Hospitals.

Nevertheless, high rise glass towers, traffic ridden flyovers crisscrossing city’s skyline, gigantic malls, multiplexes dazzling with global luster, huge structured hotels and hospitals, dazzling beauty parlors, bars etc. emanate invisible, constant, unsettling radiation everywhere.

Yet, ‘Hyderabad Special Evening Showers’ that brought relief and fragrance to the soil, the gentle breezes that caressed, the compulsion to protect against cold weather in nights with thick bedsheets is just the past. People now experience unexpected heavy rains creating untold misery and havoc with floodwaters sweeping away even large vehicles in many areas.

Painfully the inundated low-lying waterlogged areas, force commuters stranded in traffic jams for hours. Successive governments, jealously competed in announcing ambitious flood-control and urban-improvement measures that never quite reached the ground. Each Chief Minister, armed with plans as tall as Hyderabad’s skyscrapers, found a way to rediscover the city’s ‘Urgent Need’ for drainage reforms, only during the monsoon, and then return to routine once the skies are clear.

The chorus grew louder after Telangana formation. K Chandrashekhar Rao promised in every monsoon, a ‘Flood-free Hyderabad’ through the ‘Strategic Nala Development Program.’ Revanth Reddy echoed similar assurances, such as, permanently fixing the problem through ‘Study of Global Models,’ water harvesting wells, streamlining the storm and sewer system in flood-prone colonies etc.  Still, each cloudburst faithfully exposed the gap between promises and pavements, leaving Hyderabadis in perpetual astonishment. Nevertheless, International and Global Summits are held.

The other side of Hyderabad development has more testing aspects. Streets echo ugly consumerism instead of simplicity of life. An affordable provision stores, cart hotels, family run vegetable shops with seasonal produce, tailor or barber, shoe repairer, duplicate key maker etc. are ‘Gone with the Wind.’ Chain of huge retail outlets including fancy Rythu Bazaars are order of the day. An ordinary eatery was metamorphosed into luxury hotel.

This paradox dazzles, devastates, and forces to rethink on development. The shopping world revolves around Grandeur Malls, housing multiplexes in a single roof under which countless outlets of global and national brands operate. Rural based Touring talkies and single-screen theater, that united neighborhoods, are replaced by multiplex chains. An organized chain silences small livelihoods and commodifies human needs.

Growth of hospital chains converted care into commerce. Packages, corporate tie-ups, insurance-linked billing etc. have become normal. Clinics, dispensaries, and nursing homes are disappearing. Specialty, Super Specialty, and Multi-Super Specialty Medicare dominate the city with chain of branches including in other states and abroad. Pharmacist-run medical shop, once guiding the community for simple health needs is non-existent. Chains often run without qualified pharmacists and offer unscientific discounts, and absolutely no check.

Academic Coaching Centers for competitive examinations, especially post intermediate study inundated Hyderabad, stretching across other cities, towns, and states. Residential house building activity has morphed into a colossus, with builders and developers calculating common area almost equal to actual living spaces in a nonsensical way, with none to pre examine. Only later, on the pretext of violations, demolitions became part of governance in its own way under different governments. Corporate Entities with their high-rise towers has become part of the life.

Award winning vegetarian, non-vegetarian, and both the catering services, have become branded chains too. Many organizations expertized in event design, management, and wedding planning across cities, Hyderabad being one of its significant markets. Communication networks know no bounds. Banking too is led by chains of public and private banks with uniform practices. Fuel stations, CNG outlets, and of late Electric Cars Charging Centers, mark every stretch of highway and city corner. Liquor, once sold by a maximum of half-a-dozen small shops, now sees sprawling outlets.

The impulse to create businesses, the desire to multiply them, to ensure continuity of standards, and to meet a growing market across geographies transforms a lone establishment into Business Chains in Hyderabad that form part of a worldwide network. But their speedy evolution has been like Alwin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock,’ a condition where individuals struggle to adapt to the overwhelming pace of life. Managerial hierarchies, investor backing, and aggressive strategies transformed the chain as an impersonal, system-driven engine of growth.

Hyderabad, founded 434 years ago, on the banks of the Musi, began as a compact city of a few dozen square kilometers with its population limited to a few lakhs, bustling around Charminar, Chow Mahalla, and the bazaars of the walled town. When I first stepped in, sixty-three years ago, it had already grown into a modest capital where the old city was joined by Secunderabad, the cantonment, and new residential colonies, together forming the ‘Twin Cities’ spread over roughly 175 square kilometers with a population nearing a million.

While broad roads, familiar faces, and a leisurely pace still defined life. Over time, Cyberabad rose with HITEC City and Gachibowli, turning the capital into a ‘Tri-City’ of over 650 Square Kilometers under GHMC limits, hosting nearly one crore people. HMDA covering more than 7000 Square Kilometers, encompassing the metropolitan region, including mandals, and villages surrounding the city. Hyderabad, despite few drawbacks has its own past, present, and future glory. Latest idea is merger of 27 urban local bodies into GHMC for coordinated Metropolitan Development.

Now it will be the ‘Future City’ including HYDRA limits, and a specific development Project envisioned as ultramodern and sustainable one. This Visionary Project reflects Telangana’s commitment to ‘Development with Difference.’

Dr BR Ambedkar Telangana State Secretariat, 175 feet Ambedkar Statue, and Telangana Martyrs' Memorial etc. are major landmarks near Hussain Sagar, as Telangana First CM KCR’s contribution, signifying gigantic transformation, reflecting the mega-metropolis of industry, education, health, IT, and culture.

Hyderabad, once with small neighborhoods now fulfils global aspirations. This development is indispensable despite visible excesses of malls, multiplexes, and towers. Hyderabad, once known for evening showers and quiet bazaars, has left with no option except to emerge as reflective of India’s Foremost Global City, with the Tri-City, Quli Qutb Shah’s Hyderabad, Sikander Jah’s Secunderabad, Chandrababu Naidu’s Cyberabad, and aspiring to transform into Revanth Reddy’s Futurabad, the Bharat Future City.

Meanwhile Telangana State Government envisioned Hyderabad as future leader in ‘Quantum Economy’ on the back of its strong infrastructure and digital skills.

The emerging Global City is envisioned as resilient, expansive, and inclusive, strengthened by public trust in the government’s commitment to pursue industrial-land regularization and transformation through HILT. At the same time, there is a strong call for a balanced and cautious approach in deciding the future of long-idle urban spaces: one that aligns with transparent, future-ready development, carefully weighing the merits and drawbacks, especially in the context of ongoing opposition and criticism.