The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen has set its eyes on the A.P. Riding Club land at Masab Tank. It plans to stymie the HMDA’s efforts to get the prime land for its office complex.
The Majlis is making a strong bid to get the premises for setting up a sports complex. The party has decided to represent to Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy not to hand over the Riding Club land to the urban development body and instead allot it for sports.
Majlis legislator Virasat Rasool Khan wants a sports facility to come up in his Nampally constituency, and he feels that the 1.5-acre land next to Mahaveer Hospital is the ideal spot.
This is in tune with the Chief Minister’s promise to provide a sports complex in each Assembly constituency for which budgetary provisions have been made.
“My constituency is the second biggest after Jubilee Hills, but there are no sport facilities worth the name here,” says Mr. Khan. Though the Riding Club land is not big enough, at least an indoor stadium can be set up here for volley ball and badminton.
Mr. Khan has represented the matter to the Hyderabad Collector and the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration.
“HMDA operations are all on the city outskirts, and they don’t need an office in the heart of the city. Why can’t the HMDA set up its office in Banjara Hills where it has its own land?” Mr. Khan asks.
The A.P. Riding Club land row figured at the District Review Committee meeting the other day when Collector Syed Ali Murtuza Rizvi said that a final decision on handing over the land to the HMDA had not been taken yet.
Ever since it vacated its office premises at Begumpet for the US Consulate, the HMDA has been looking for a suitable place to set up its office. The government has promised the Riding Club land for the HMDA for bringing under one roof its various units.
Earlier, the Hyderabad Collectorate, too, toyed with the idea of building its new office premises here but dropped the plan in view of congestion.
Mr. Khan feels that setting up of a seven-storeyed building by the HMDA will create traffic problems in the Masab Tank area where traffic is already chock-a-block.
