HYDERABAD: The state government’s plan to reduce the size of the Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) of KBR Park in Hyderabad has elicited criticism from environmentalists. With assembly elections round the corner, they hope that they can make the issue a political one and pressure the government into backtracking on its stance.
When contacted, Prof K Purushottam Reddy, environmentalist and one of the persons party to the 2016 case on the KBR National Park issue in National Green Tribunal (NGT), said, “Elections are around the corner and we are planning to make a green manifesto for public to include the environmental issues which affect the state.
Telangana government has sought clearances for chopping down many trees in the name of various projects, there is no respite to pollution of Musi river and the state is now bent upon choking KBR National Park. The environment will be an important agenda in this election.”
Thakur Rajkumar Singh, another environmentalist who approached NGT over encroachments of various lakes in Hyderabad, said, “There is a need for making the issue surrounding KBR National Park a political issue and challenge the government.
We do not want to give any colour to the issue and will present the bare facts to the public. We have been fighting to protect the KBR walkway in its present form and will achieve it.”
‘There should be a master plan which divides the ESZ into various zones’
An independent policy expert from the city, Dr D Narasimha Reddy, said, “There should be a 1 km ESZ around KBR National Park. There should be a master plan which divides the ESZ into various zones like open space zone, compound wall zone, road zone and built environment, with each zone having its own regulations, which respond to the objectives of the ecological preservation. We will write to the MoEF raising objections on this new draft notification and ensure it is not finalised”
A member of the KBR Runners Group, Dr Shilpa Reddy, said, “I have been walking and running in KBR National Park for the last 17 years. Once the government is allowed to take land away from the park’s surrounding, then there would be no end to it and the park itself might come under threat. The ESZ plays an important role in providing a buffer space to the park. Similar to the people from Bengaluru who ensured that a steel flyover is not erected, we will also win this fight.”
What is the issue?
It was reported in these columns on Wednesday that the Expert Committee of Ministry of Environment and Forests on ESZ in its meeting held last month gave a go-ahead to new draft notification of Telangana forest department, which proposes to reduce ESZ of KBR National Park from the previously proposed ‘25 metres to 35 meters’ to ‘3 metres to 29.8 metres’.
This would mean that the walkway around the national park which presently exists 25m to 30m from the boundary of the forest, will at some places be as narrow as 3m. This would also result in chopping of 1,394 trees to construct eight multi-level flyovers at six junctions around the national park as part of SRDP.