HYDERABAD: After maintaining silence for over a month, Secunderabad Cantonment Board(SCB) CEO SVR Chandrasekhar on Wednesday commented on the issue of road closures by the Local Military Authority(LMA).
He said, to the surprise of many, that the only 9 roads had been closed by the LMA, of which 7 had been reopened over the past few days. This goes against the complaints of many residents of the area that many roads had been closed, causing much inconvenience to them.
The Ministry of Defence issued a directive on May 21 to cantonments across the country, enquiring them about roads that had been closed in their jurisdictions and ordered reopening of closed roads which have historically been used by the general public.
The letter was widely discussed in the media and gathered much of the public’s attention, receiving positive reception from many quarters.
Chandrasekhar had kept mum throughout the issue even after receiving complaints from many resident welfare associations from the Secunderabad Cantonment area(SCB), who claimed that 25 roads were closed in the area.
This is probably why many were surprised when he stated on Wednesday that only 9 roads, not 25, were closed for the public. He added that 7 roads had already been opened after receiving the directive from the MoD. The remaining two, Lakdawala and Ammuguda roads, were blocked with walls and barricades, he said.
Delegation from SCB meets Nirmala Sitharaman
A delegation of public representatives from Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB), including Malkajgiri MP Ch Malla Reddy and SCB Vice President J Ramakrishna met Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday night.They requested her to release funds for the pending service charges, which are supposed to be paid to the SCB by the defence ministry. They told her that in spite of the MoD’s directive issued last month, the LMA had not yet opened up all the closed roads in the Cantonment area and asked her to look into the issue as it was causing inconvenience to the public.
The delegation informed Sitharaman that SCB was supposed to get nearly `466 crore worth of dues from the military and brought to her notice that SCB was the largest cantonment in the country, and asked for at least `50 crore to be paid this year. The delegation also asked for changes in building by-laws in the SCB.