HYDERABAD: Roads were closed in the Secunderabad Cantonment Board in violation of the provisions of the Cantonments Act, alleged residents, citing a notice issued by the Ambala Cantonment in Chandigarh.
For closing a small stretch of 175 metres on Kitchner Road and 169 metres of Canning Road, the authorities issued a public notice few weeks ago and asked people to send their views. They also proposed an alternative road so that the civilians are not put to inconvenience.
Members of OSCAR (Open Secunderabad Cantonment All Roads), which is fighting against closure and restrictions of various roads in the Cantonment, said that the Section 258 of Cantonments Act has not been followed and roads were closed unilaterally by the Local Military Authorities (LMA).
“As per the procedure, when the Cantonment Board receives a road closure request from the LMA, it has to publish a public notice asking feedback from the public. In the Ambala Cantonment, such a notice was issued by the CEO,” C.S. Chandrashekar of OSCAR said.
It is hard to understand as to how more than 15 roads, totalling to over 10 km, were either closed or restricted by the Secunderabad LMA, members pointed out.
S.K. Jain, secretary of Bungalow Owners’ Association of Ambala Cantonment said that the Army can act on its will for unit areas (only used by defence personnel), but not on A roads, B roads or C roads that are used both by the Army and the public. “The army establishment should send their proposal to respective Cantonment Board which should pass a resolution to back their decision. Then views of the stakeholders, including the general public, should also be sought. For genuine security concerns, people are ready to co-operate with the Army,” he said.
Secunderabad Cantonment Board vice-president J. Ramakrishna echoed the sentiments of civilians and agreed that the Section 258 of the Cantonment Act was not followed in the road closure.
