Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence visits Secunderabad Cantonment Board

Secunderabad: At last long pending issues, including road closure, implementations of new building bylaws of the Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) will see a ray hope, as 27 members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence visited SCB on Thursday.

The Federation of Northern Eastern Colonies Secunderabad (FNECS) and former ward members of the board met the committee members and submitted written representations on re-opening of 21 roads and many other pending issues.

During the interaction with the committee, members of FNECS explained how connectivity from the north-eastern Secunderabad to the rest of the city was only through the cantonment roads and the problems caused to residents because of the 'illegal' and 'arbitrary' closure of roads by the Local Military Authorities (LMA). The federation also drew attention of the committee to the fact that in 2018 itself the Defence Ministry had decided to re-open the closed roads because they had been closed in violation of the provisions of Section 258 of the Cantonments Act 2006.

Its representatives informed the members that the army headquarters had issued orders in May 2018, directing all commanders to re-open the roads closed by the LMA. However, the roads in Secunderabad continue to be closed, despite the orders. They also drew the committee's attention to modernise and improve the cantonment roads, which are of 'primitive design of seven decades and are unlit and unsafe'. They requested for widening of roads and to ensure that land is made available for this purpose," said C S Chandrashekhar, Secretary, FNECS.

Maheshwar Reddy, ex-ward SCB Member said, "We submitted a written representation to the Parliamentary Standing Committee regarding immediate disbursement of the pending service charges of up to Rs 650 crore to the SCB for taking up infrastructure works, implementation of the new building bylaws. Chairman of the standing committee Jual Oram assured us that the committee will look into the issues raised by the delegation and try to get them resolved."