It
has been around three months since The Times of India started its green campaign
to restore Hyderabad’s vanishing green glory. With many activists, some
green campuses and a few babus showing the red signal to this green murder,
hundreds of tree felling applications are now pending with the government for
approval. But considerable damage has already been done, finds Kingshuk Nag as
he drives down a once green lane to find it reduced to a barren stretch even as
activists indulge in hectic green activities over the last few
weeks
Travelling past the
Mrugavani deer park on the outskirts of Hyderabad, the road bifurcates. If you
drive straight you reach Gandipet which till recently used to meet the entire
drinking water needs of the city. But driving on the forked road will take you
on a long journey. After a few kilometres, the road forks again: one of them
takes you to the famous Chilkur Balaji temple, the other takes you straight to
Chevella and beyond that to Bijapur and Gulbarga.
It's a nice drive, but you
don't have to reach Chevella to realise the green murder on this road. Stumps of
huge trees are lying on both sides of the road, even as the cut trees are
missing. This writer counted over 60 stumps of huge trees lying on the roads
last week. About three weeks ago there was one tree standing on this road.
Investigations at the spot at
that time had revealed that this lone tree was not retained as a memento: only
that it was intertwining with an overhead electricity line and the contractors'
men were being careful. But this time this writer found that this last tree had
gone. On the spot were half a dozen men sawing the remains of the tree that
looked easily some 250 -300 years old. The wood was being neatly cut into small
logs and loaded on to a huge truck that stood
alongside.
Further inquiries revealed
that the contractor was murdering this nature's gift at the behest of the Roads
and Building (R & B) department whose men, of course, are quite innocent of
facts such as large trees being carbon sinks and natural coolants and shade
providers. Needless to add the trees have been hacked to make way for expanding
the road. And the road expansion is, of course, due to the increased flow of
traffic, catalysed by the realities of an ever expanding Hyderabad.
Nobody had obviously given any
thought about whether the road alignments could be such as to skirt the trees or
whether the trees could form the median, with roads on either side. Seeing this
author getting into an animated discussion with an accompanying colleague, our
driver Mohammed Akbar joined in the conversation. "I have been driving on this
road for the last 15 years. These trees used to give so much shade and would act
as a canopy on the road," he said.
Driving a little further we
exactly understood what Akbar was saying. The tree cutters had not reached the
point and the trees stood on both sides of the road. It was indeed a beautiful
sight with trees forming some sort of welcome arches for vehicles ferrying on
the
road.
Green
Campuses Calling
The other day
we met V P Dimri, the director of National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI)
located in Uppal. The geophysicist, a lover of nature, was worried about the 250
odd trees on his huge campus that would fall to the axe. The need for cutting
the trees has arisen because the road had to be expanded, a process which would
mean that NGRI's boundary wall would go in by 75 feet. These trees lie in that
part of land that would have to be given up for road widening. Dimri's question:
is there any way the trees can be saved say perhaps by translocating them? On
hearing from the geophysicist we went to meet him and as we entered his campus
and looked around it became clear that NGRI's will not be the only campus that
would lose greenery to road expansion.
Bang opposite the NGRI lies
the campus of the Survey Of India, which too would lose land and green to the
roads. In fact, a short drive on the road reveals that all campuses on this road
would lose precious trees. This after the Greater Hyderabad Municipal
Corporation (GHMC) a couple of months ago chopped off precious trees which were
standing on the edges of this Habsiguda-Uppal road. As many as 340 fully grown
trees were lost in the exercise and the remains of this green murder now line
the road in the form of stumps. Managers of some campuses have already given up
their land without bothering about their green possessions.
A prime example of this is the
National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) whose readiness to bow to the municipal
dictates have now become a threat to its neighbour; the Railway College. The
Railway College, the only degree college to be run by the Indian Railways
anywhere in the country, will also lose a significant number of trees when the
road is widened. Even as the South Central Railway is locked in a legal dispute
with the GHMC on the issue of compensation of the land it will surrender, its
officials - much in the manner of geophysicist Dimri - are mulling how to save
the trees.