Bison gate opened for civilian traffic

After Local Military Authority (LMA) suddenly closed down Bison gate and started imposing night restrictions on other roads, such as Wellington road and Allahabad gate, Secunderabad Cantonment Board Vice President Mr J. Rama Krishna wrote to the LMA formally requesting them to reopen all the roads on Tuesday, citing inconvenience to the public and also requests to have a special board meeting to discuss the same.

This comes after Minister K. Taraka Rama Rao responded to residents recently over a social media platform that he would intervene in the issue. According to sources, the minister called SCB elected representatives and asked to do the needful.

The letter, which was addressed to the President of the SCB, Brig Abhijith Chandra stated that “It is observed that the LMA has once again started closing some of the roads in cantonment very abruptly and these activities are repeating frequently.”

The letter further added that “It is pertinent to mention that the LMA is initiating such acts without following the due procedure of Cantonments Act, 2006. It was also observed that the LMA is acting beyond its jurisdiction and closing the roads failing under the classification of C lands.”

It was also proposed that to speedily convene a Special Board meeting with the single point agenda of opening all the closed roads.”

The residents claim that the road closures by LMA are causing severe inconvenience to the common people, more particularly to the women, school children, working women and senior citizens as they use these thoroughfares for regular commuting.

Highly placed sources on the condition of anonymity said that the LMA has been closing roads abruptly after receiving a ‘Security threat alert’ from the Ministry of Defence.