Hyderabad: The Union ministry of defence has not issued any orders to the Local Military Authority to close the Gough Road in the AOC. With-out the order, the LMA cannot close any defence road.
The LMA on Thursday had installed boards displaying the closure of Gough Road from Friday. It later removed the boards in the evening, which was taken as a sign of that the road will continue to remain open. The latest deadline — the six in two years — to close the road had expired on Thursday.
Col. Harpreet Singh, Deputy Commandant, AOC Centre, had on November 17 written to GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy and the city traffic wing, regarding the closure of Gough Road with effect from December 1. It cited the High Court directions of September 24, 2014.
It said Gough Road had been kept open for civilian traffic up to November 30 as per the directions of the defence minister, and would be closed from December 1. It said the Ordinance Road, Wellington Road and Entrenchment Road would remain open for civilian traffic from 7 am to 10 pm for some more time.
The letter reached the GHMC commissioner on Thursday afternoon, and he forwarded it to chief secretary S.P. Singh. Mr Singh wrote to the Union defence secretary seeking another extension but without mentioning any specific timeframe.
A senior official of the TS government confirmed that the defence ministry had not issued any orders for the Gough Road closure, bringing relief to lakhs of residents especially in the northeastern part of Secunderabad.
