HYDERABAD: Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao on Tuesday alleged that Centre was playing its cards quite cleverly with regard to the proposed merger of the Secunderabad Cantonment Board merger with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) as only a few parts which face a lot of problems will be merged with the local civic body.
“SCB wants to leave the colonies which have problems like where we have to build nalas and drainages to the GHMC and wants to keep developed places like golf course, beautiful buildings and other facilities with them. But it is fine, we will take it,” said Rama Rao.
He said that the fact was that there is a long-pending demand to merge civil areas of the SCB with the GHMC as the move will help the State government expedite infra projects. “We want to build good skyways in Cantonment, but the Centre is not allowing us to do it. We had planned to create facilities like PVNR Expressway Paradise and JBS towards Kompally and Shamirpet. For this, we require 100 acres of land. We have been waiting for this for seven years, yet there is no response from the Centre,” the minister said.
He said that the State government has requested the Centre to set up a defence and aerospace cluster between Hyderabad and Bengaluru which have many defence organisations. “However, they chose to announce this corridor in Bundelkhand. In spite of lack of support from the Centre to educational institutes, medical colleges, pharma and IT, Telangana continues to grow,” Rama Rao said.