HYDERABAD: The cantonment executive officer (CEO) of the Cantonment Board Hyderabad (CBH), Omer Siddique Chaudhry, has taken exception to a notice issued by Station Commander Brig Shahid Mehmood, president of the cantonment board (PCB), for convening meetings of the CBH assessment and building committees in the Station Headquarters.

Through his Oct 5 letter, he questioned the notice and asked him “to let undersigned perform his legal functions in accordance with provisions of Cantonment Act 1924 without undue intervention”. The CEO’s letter says: “The call notice issued by PCB, addressed to chairmen assessment/building committees, to convene meetings of respective committees in Station Headquar­ters is ultra vires, illegal thus needs to be recalled failing which matter shall be reported to competent authority for necessary advice”. He said that such meetings of the committees could only be convened in the CBH office through a notice issued by him (CEO).

Besides, CBH councillors belonging to the PPP and MQM on Wednesday submitted to the board a fresh requisition for an early convening of special meetings of the CBH on a two-point agenda: illegal construction in Defence Officers Housing Society (DOHS) and permission for a survey in DOHS phase- I and II.

A meeting on the same agenda was called by the CEO on Oct 6 but he being secretary of the CBH by virtue of his post did not attend it and went on leave on ‘health grounds’. CBH councillors –– who believed that he was avoiding to attend the meeting on these important issues –– took notice of his absence and even requested head of the Combined Military Hospital Brig Munir Ahmed to form a medical board to examine the CEO to ascertain if he was too ill to attend the CBH meeting convened on the councillors’ request.

The councillors have expressed grave concern over illegal construction of buildings in the past and that is why they want a survey conducted in the Cantonment areas through the committee concerned.

According to PPP councillor Qazi Ashad, a member of the building committee, numerous buildings are illegally constructed in Saddar and DOHS over the years and, therefore, their survey is essential. He said such buildings would be identified in the survey.

Mr Ashad said that while the CEO’s objection that committee meetings should not be held in the Station Headquarters was correct but he himself avoided chairing a meeting called by him on members’ joint requisition. He avoided to attending the meeting and that had been brought on record of the CBH, he said.

Like other areas in the municipal limits, the Hyderabad Cantonment area has also witnessed a mushrooming of commercial plazas in recent years, adding to the civic woes. There are cases in which parking space is either not reserved, or is deliberately overlooked, or it is ensured in an ill-planned manner that defeats the purpose of parking. Even high-rises are approved in an already too congested an area. The CBH has accorded approvals for additional floors to plazas after initially reducing the number of stories in different plazas. In some cases mutation of flats and shops is not taking place for one reason or another, involving building and the CBH.

According to MQM councillor Iqbal Memon, data has been informally collected by them in that regard, which would be submitted to the CBH. He said permission for an additional floor had been illegally granted to builders, and permission for ground plus one to ground plus two had been accorded. Usually, he said, CBH staff took quick action against a poor cabin-owner or shopkeeper for raising an additional structure before his shop but influential people were spared.

Published in Dawn, October 8th , 2015

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