‘Centre evasive on taking lawmakers in excision panel’ in Telangana

HYDERABAD: Union minister of state for defence Ajay Bhatt on Friday told the Lok Sabha that an eight-member committee has been constituted to look into the proposed excision of civil areas of Secunderabad Cantonment, but evaded a direct reply on why elected representatives, including MPs and MLAs, were not included on the crucial committee.
“Any decision regarding excision of civil areas of Secunderabad Cantonment and their merger with adjoining municipality shall be taken only after consultations with all stakeholders,” said Ajay Bhatt.He was replying to questions from Malkajgiri Congress MP A Revanth Reddy. Secunderabad Cantonment is one of the assembly segments of Malkajgiri Lok Sabha seat.
The questions raised by Revanth included whether the government has constituted the committee to look into the merger of civil areas of Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) with GHMC. If so, he said details should be given along with the reasons for not including public representatives in the committee and whether the government proposes to include them in the committee or not.
However, the minister was evasive over including MPs and MLAs in the committee, which comprises joint secretary (finance), who will be chairman of committee, and joint secretary (land and works) of MoD, additional director general (Cantonments), director general of defence estates (DGDE), additional DG (land, works and environment) from the Army headquarters in Delhi, secretary of MAUD from Telangana, director of defence estates (southern command, Pune, as SCB falls under this command) and president of the Cantonment Board as members. The chief executive officer of SCB is the member-secretary of the committee.
To another question from Revanth about the Sumit Bose Committee report, the minister said the Bose panel has reported inter-alia that Cantonments have often not witnessed the benefits of urbanisation to the extent of the neighbouring city areas. Explaining the steps taken to increase the speed of development in Cantonment areas, the minister said Cantonment boards have started receiving grants based on the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission from financial year 2020-21.