HYDERABAD: Secunderabad Cantonment Board residents are sceptical of the Defence Ministry's announcement that it will open all 62 roads in Cantonment areas across the country. They pointed out that the ministry had passed a similar order in January 2015, but the Local Military Authority (LMA) managed to convince senior-level officials and ensured the roads remained closed.
They are worried that the same thing will happen this time around, too. The members, who held a two-hour long meeting on Monday, have decided to write to the Defence ministry, yet again, in case the LMA does not open the roads as directed by the ministry. The north eastern federation association member CS Chandra Shekar said that in 2015, LMA opposed the move citing security reasons.
This time around, they are likely to do the same thing and may not comply with the Defence ministry's orders stating that the closed roads are Unit Line roads,'' he said. In case the LMA chooses not to take up the matter with their higher ups in New Delhi, then the 25 roads in SCB could be thrown open to the public within 20 days.
The residents also alleged that the LMA was preparing a report to submit to the Defence Ministry against opening of the roads based on a High Court order in 2014, which ruled that these roads are Unit Line Roads. The issue of collection of service charges from the LMA also came up for discussion during the meeting. ''It would be helpful for SCB if the LMA paid service charges on time. The SCB has been struggling to get its due, which is nearly `466 crore of service charges this financial year. The Ministry has paid only `50 crore so far,'' J Ramakrishna said.