Merger of Sec’bad Cantt with GHMC wait continues

Hyderabad: The recent letter from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to all four Army Commands (Central, Eastern, Western, and Southern) stated the excision of the civil areas of 31 cantonment boards. Secunderabad is under progress but this has led to confusion in Secunderabad Cantonment, according to the SCB officials they are in a status quo situation, as they have not received any information from MoD about the green signal for the merger of civil areas of Cantonment with GHMC.

According to SCB officials, after a single meeting in February this year, where the eight-member committee submitted a report on the matter, no progress was made, but remarkable progress was made in the other 30 Cantonments.

On the condition of anonymity, a senior officer of SCB said,“After February’s meeting there was no progress, whereas other Cantonments have finalised minutes of the meeting and sent the proposal to the State government but in our case, there is no clarity from the Centre. After the February meeting, we discussed the morals that the MOD shared, as well as how many acres of land SCB owns, but concerned officials assured us that they would get back to us, but the Centre has yet to respond or schedule further meetings.

He emphasised the current situation by saying, “The news that the MOD had approved the merger created confusion because it was unclear how the MoD could approve the merger without deciding what to provide and what not to.”

“According to the notice that the principal directors of the four commands were required to submit a status report by January 1, 2024, the situation in Secunderabad Cantonment limits is that, as of the last ten months, there has been no significant progress made towards the merger process. In other Boards, there have been several meetings, and now they are required to submit the state government’s opinion; however, in our case, we have not scheduled a second meeting.

We are in a status quo situation, as the board is not aware of any green signal given for the merger and if at all the signal is given we are not aware to which Cantonment it is given because there is no progress after the February meeting”, he added.