Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

SCB polls: two key issues dominate ward nos. 7, 8

HYDERABAD: Construction of a super speciality hospital and house pattas to slum dwellers are the two main issues dominating the Secunderabad Cantonment Board elections in ward numbers seven and eight.

A proposal was earlier mooted to construct a 150-bed super speciality hospital in ward number eight at an estimated cost of Rs. 7 crore after the decades-old Cantonment Hospital at Bollarum was demolished last year.

However, there is ambiguity over the location where the new hospital will come up.

Even as residents from Alwal, Risala Bazar and surrounding areas of the ward want the hospital to be constructed at Bollarum, politicians from other wards want to construct the hospital at Mudfort, citing easy accessibility to public in the Secunderabad Cantonment Board than in Bollarum.

Cashing in on the ambiguity over construction of the Cantonment Hospital, all the nine candidates contesting from the ward are wooing the 18,500 residents hard with a promise to build it in Bollarum.

Excepting for P.D. Ashok Kumar who contested from the same ward during the 2006 elections (before the delimitation exercise), the remaining eight are debutants and a close fight is expected.

On the other hand, in ward seven, there are 18,800 voters and a majority of them are from slums at Gunrock Sai Baba huts, Ambedkar Colony and BMH lines.

All the eight contestants from the ward are focusing on slum dwellers’ problems - house pattas.

While some promise the slum dwellers new houses under the VAMBAY scheme, others emphasise development of Government high schools and improving basic amenities in the ward.

A tough contest is on the cards between J. Ramakrishna and P. Shyam Kumar, who is in the fray on behalf of his father and former SCB vice- president P. Gouri Shanker.

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