HYDERABAD: Environmentalists are on their toes as there is just 15 days to go for submitting objections against a Ministry of Environment and Forests(MoEF) draft notification on revising the dimensions of the eco sensitive zone at KBR National Park.
The draft notification released on October 30 proposes the reduction of the walkway around the national park to up to just 3 metres at some stretches from its present width of 25-35 metres.
If the MoEF does not receive any objection within sixty days of publication of draft notification, it will be published as final. The draft notification which was published on the MoEF’s website failed to catch the media’s attention amid the high-decibel election rhetoric that ended on Tuesday.
It was only a couple of days ago that a few environmentalists from the city got to know of the publication of the draft notification, leaving them just two weeks to send any objections if they want to.
The proposal to reduce the width of the walkway and remove 1,349 trees around KBR National Park for the construction of multilevel flyovers at six junctions as part of Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP) has come under fire several time sin the last two years.
Kaajal Maheshwari of Hyderabad Rising, one of the groups protesting the issue said, “We have already drafted a point-to-point objection to the draft notification that will be mailed to the MoEF. Social media is being put to use to spread awareness regarding the draft notification as many do not even know that it has been released.”
Citizens for Hyderabad, another collective of citizens is also spreading information regarding the draft notification on social media. “I will send objections in a day or two. Even if only one objection is sent, it has to be considered seriously. We are contacting like-minded people,” D Narasimha Reddy, an activist said.