HYDERABAD: In what can be termed as a ‘development at the cost of the environment’, the construction of a proposed flyover under the strategic road development plan is putting around hundred saplings, planted by the locals along the Masjid Banda road at Botanical Gardens junction in Kondapur, at the risk of being destroyed.
Back in 2016, saplings of varieties like Pagoda and Tabebuia Rosia were planted by the residents of Gautami Enclave in Kondapur in a community partnership drive across the stretch.
“A little more than 100 saplings are expected to be uprooted. Many of them have already been uprooted. We invested lakhs of rupees to maintain the saplings by deploying a water tanker to water the saplings on a daily basis,” said Muralidhar Vadlamudi, a resident of Gautami Enclave.
This raises a question, how many such saplings survived the construction activities that were taken up during Haritha Haaram.
However, the biodiversity wing of the GHMC, which carried out the uprooting of the trees held that the trees will be relocated to an appropriate place.
Meanwhile, the development of Raidurgam-ORR stretch under second phase of Metro Rail Project is likely to result in uprooting of 10,000 saplings. Officials said that they would be translocated.