HYDERABAD: In what looks like an act of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has called tenders to set up barbed wire fencing around the Khajaguda Heritage site, after its widespread destruction. The HMDA, which is the custodian of the rock site as per a High Court order, woke up from its slumber and is now getting its act together. The heritage activists feel that the measure would at least protect whatever is left of the site because a lot of damage has already been done to rocks which date back to pre-historic times.
The entire site is roughly in about 200 acres spread across three survey numbers. The HMDA on Monday invited tenders with a deadline of April 28. The work is slated to cost the government Rs 86 lakh for fencing 154 acres in survey No 452/1 and 46 acres in No 454/1. The heritage rocks, which were formed nearly 250 crore years ago, have been destroyed systematically over the last 10 years with quarrying works, encroachment by builders and latest with government planning to lay a road connecting Lanco Hills to ORR.
The activists had run a two-month-long campaign and also questioned the illegal dumping of soil that had levelled out the contours of the rocky terrain into plain land, suspected to be for car parking and making driveways.“At the moment we are happy that the survey of the area and demarcation of the boundaries is
happening. The primary issue all these years has been that of ownership because people were encroaching it from outside due to easy access. Once a fence is up, we and even the guards can call out trespassing,” said Ritwik Reddy, a campaigner of the cause.
Multifold destruction