SECUNDERABAD: The Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB), by law, should have formed a range of committees to look after various aspects of civic amenities within its jurisdiction. However, the board currently has no such committees in place. This, even when problems such as bad roads, poor sanitation, non-functioning street lights, strays animals, water contamination among others remain prevalent in SCB areas.
As per the Cantonment Act, the Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) must set up six committees — business regulation, civil areas, education, health & environment, finance, public works & buildings — to ensure good governance but none of them have been formed.
“The 74th Constitutional Amendment or Nagarpalika Act was effected to give power to the people in urban governance. For this, committees were to be set up in all municipal corporations, including cantonment boards to ensure citizen participation and accountability. SCB officials, however, have violated this amendment,” said 67-year-old Venkata Ramana, a local.
“During their six-year term, elected members have done nothing. Their efforts are invisible,” B Damodar Naidu, a resident of Rasoolpura, told TOI. S Tirupathi Reddy, a resident of Karkhana said that while proceedings used to be uploaded on the SCB portal. “Now, they are not displayed to the public in SCB circles or even the official notice boards,” he said. Residents said that while the six-year term of elected board members had been completed and dissolved in 2020, none in the previous term served as members of any major committees.
“We had constituted committees, recommended them twice to Union ministry of defence (MoD) along with list of elected members, to notify them as per new Cantonment Act and modify them to give more powers. Unfortunately, previous members’ term had finished,” SCB chief executive officer, B Ajith Reddy told TOI. He claimed that civil area committees had been formed with elected members. “We had recommended giving more power to the board’s vice-chairman too,” he said.
Meanwhile, former member from Ward-VI Pandu Yadav said, “We had given our names for committees but none had been announced during my six-year-tenure.”
