HYDERABAD: Even as the GHMC makes rapid strides towards technological advancement, bringing ease into the lives of its taxpayers, the adjoining Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) remains entangled in numerous administrative and civil issues. The situation is so dire that the demand for merging the SCB into the GHMC too is now gaining pace.
In this regard, the residents of the Cantonment have initiated a massive door-to-door campaign, in order to educate the public regarding their cause and collect signatures from them. They plan to collect 5,000 signatures and then send the petition to both Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
With eight civilian wards and a population of four lakh, the Secunderabad Cantonment is the largest in the country. Residents allege that bureaucracy and red-tapism are part and parcel of the board’s functioning. For example, the board still continues the practice of manual submission of applications for building permission, which has to be later approved by a meeting of the board. There is allegedly no fixed time frame for clearing these applications, and it usually ends up taking four to six months.
Telukuntia Satish Gupta, president of Vasavinagar Welfare Association, draws a comparison between the SCB and the GHMC in this light. “GHMC’s building plan approval is so simple because they clear the application soon after scrutiny, with just 6 per cent registration fee. In SCB, however, the officials take much more time. After the application is kept before the board, the elected members have to pass a resolution. The plan is finally approved with 9.5 per cent registration fee,” he said.
Even basic facilities like drinking water, health and sanitation, etc. are in a deplorable state. “Even the board meetings are not held regularly. The State government should pass a bill in the Assembly, and merge the Cantonment’s civilian area with GHMC. The Act should be forward to the Centre for approval,” said Gupta.
Similarly, S Chandrasekhar of Open Secunderabad Cantonment All Roads (OSCAR) pointed out that the board had failed to allocate funds to the Cantonment hospital. According to him, the new Defence Minister Rajnath Singh should strictly implement the earlier orders to open all the roads closed by Local Military Authority (LMA).