Top secret: QQSUD, but not quite A

hyderabad: here is a well-kept secret:the quli qutub shah urban development authority (qqsuda) is not an‘authority’ as one was led to believe but just a registered societylike numerous others. even after a decade of its existence, the qqsuda has notbeen officially declared an urban development authority (uda) by the stategovernment. legally, the qqsuda is nothing more than a society registered underthe a p (telangana area) public societies registration act, 1985. therefore, ithas no option but to depend on funds from the government for its survival unlessit is given a true uda status under the ap urban land development act, 1976.“we have been trying in vain to convince the government to grant us thestatus for the last year several years. now our position is so fragile that theemployees will have no voice if the government winds up the authority,� anofficial said. qqsuda administrator j r anand admitted that a proposal to windup the authority was made in may 2000, but it was chief minister n chandrababunaidu who rejected the proposal. he asked the officials to suggest measures tostrengthen the authority. subsequently, proposals for financial and operationalguidelines to strengthen the authority were sent to the government in august2000. interestingly, in the first proposal itself, the government was asked togrant the status of an urban development authority to qqsuda with jurisdictionover the area south of the musi, sources said. but the government failed toreact to any of the proposals that were made at least three times, till date.later, the officials forwarded yet another proposal saying that if thegovernment was not willing to grant uda status to the qqsuda, it should allocaters 8.40 crore from plan budget for taking up development works. it also wantedand rs 1.60 crore from non-plan budget to meet expenditure on establishment andcontingencies every year. but the government did not respond to any of theproposals while continuing to cut budget allocations every year.