HYDERABAD: Residents of the Cantonment area are facing problems to bring serious matters to the notice of officials concerned. If a person goes to the board office to find a solution to a vexed issue, he will be greeted by empty chairs. The absence of staff is attributed to their presence at the field inspection duty. Non-availability of staff and irregular timings are causing inconvenience to the public and elected representatives.
It is also difficult to meet the SCB CEO because of his irregular timings to hear public grievances. Most of the time, he will be busy with inspections and outstation meetings. “The former CEO used to respond promptly to the suggestions and problems of the residents. Such response system has vanished since the last ten months,” rued a colony resident.
Prof. N.L.N. Reddy, a cantonment resident, said that any civic issue like damaged roads and streetlights needs days to get re-solved. “The only connection between the public and the SCB is inward section. Even there, the response system is weak,” he said. C. Sankaran said, “GHMC commissioner ta-kes care of an area that is 20 times that of the cantonment. The number of war-ds is also higher.”
SCB skips praja darbar to discuss public issues:
In most government offices, Mondays are set aside for praja darbar or mee kosam programme where the public can submit their grievances directly to officials for a speedy disposal. In the district headquarters, the collector and heads of departments devote three to four hours to hear public grievances on Mondays. However, the Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) lacks this.
In government offices, two hours (3 pm to 5 pm) are allotted every day for the public to meet government officials. The SCB had such a provision for two days in a week earlier. But that practice has been stopped now. When told about the discontent among citizens on non-availability of officials, J. Ramakrishna, SCB vice-president, said, “We will not spare anybody if found to be negligent in duties. This issue will be discussed in the forthcoming board meeting. The proposal to install biometric attendance will also be discussed.”
