Residents' shramdaan goes waste

Hyderabad: The senior citizens of Sainikpuri have done a series of peaceful shramdaans in order to make authorities remove a walled construction at the RK Puram flyover, built by the Local Military Authority (LMA) a year ago. But all their efforts have gone in vain as the authorities have not bothered to resolve the issue. When contacted, both Cantonment Board officials and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) officials are passing the buck to one another regarding the demolition.

Nearly two months ago, the Ministry of Defence had given orders to reopen all the cantonment roads, but despite orders, many roads in the Secunderabad Cantonment remain closed. Adding to that there are three walled constructions blocking the way. Out of them, the wall near the RK Puram flyover, belongs to GHMC, as per the cantonment board officials and it does not fall under SCB jurisdiction.

On the other hand, the GHMC official for Malkajgiri division, Mr. Venugopal said that the part where the wall is constructed is not included in the GHMC.
Civilians conducted 14 Sunday shramdaans, starting from October 22, 2017 till January 28, 2018 at the location. One of the senior residents who participated in the shramdaan, Ms Gulshan Bamboat, said, “The law of the land has to be followed by all citizens, whether in uniform or out of it, whether blue, white or any other colour-collared, whether industrialist or labourer, salaried or self-employed, Government employee or housewife, everybody. Here, the LMA is not only not following the rules and regulations, but blatantly disobeying their own Chief Of Army Staff (COAS), and worse, the raksha mantri also. This is total insubordination!”

Residents said that many traffic problems can be solved if the RK Puram wall is demolished. Adding to the woes is the fact that there is no signal or traffic police personnel monitoring the situation. The ‘lifeline’ road to the North Eastern part of the city is blocked.

Some of the residents took to Twitter to highligt the issue. A tweet by Ms Deepa Shailender reads, “There is grace and there is a wall. This is the Wall of Disgrace! The wall blockades the exit from the RK Puram railway station.

Sainikpuri and the rest of Secunderabad North-east are already battling a woeful lack or almost zero connectivity by metro or rail to the city. This is the Symbol of Apathy!”

The Federation of North Eastern Colonies of Secunderabad (FNECS), is also approaching various Cantonment and Government officials regarding the RK Puram underpass.

Although Cantonment and GHMC officials are distancing themselves from the demolition, residents strongly believe that the duty to remove the wall encroachment is of the State Government’s as it is a service road over the bridge. It was confirmed from a written note from the Secunderabad Canton-ment Board that the RK Puram flyover is not under their jurisdiction. Now the onus is on the GHMC. 

The Federation of North Eastern Colonies of Secu-nderabad had given a representation to GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy to remove the brick wall immediately.