Hyderabad’s trees were cut for flyovers that won’t be built. Who pays for the destruction?

The plan to build 14 flyovers changed after a one-way traffic system eased congestion. How did the genius town planners of Hyderabad not think to implement this before destroying the trees?

Construction work around KBR Park in Hyderabad, where trees were felled for the H-CITI project | Photos: X/@CitizensForHyd

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that most of Hyderabad one day woke up aghast to see hundreds of trees around KBR Park being uprooted or chopped down to make way for new flyovers. But all that destruction was apparently for nothing. A few months on, just like that, the Telangana government quietly changed its entire plan and decided it would build one flyover instead of 14 ambitious flyovers and underpasses.

I am referring to the latest development in the Congress government’s plan to improve traffic in and around the Jubilee Hills area, which connects to Hitec City, or the IT sector. The original project had already come into question and drawn umbrage from citizens who were livid at the uprooting of trees planted all around the historic KBR Park and along the median.

The entire plan changed after a one-way traffic system was introduced around KBR Park in August to facilitate construction and manage congestion. This, as many of us saw over the last few weeks, eased traffic woes that have been plaguing roads connecting to Hitec City, especially during peak hours.

Weeks after the one-way system began to show positive results, the government literally flipped the entire plan. Nobody’s asking who is going to pay for the environmental destruction.

What I am stumped to understand is how the genius town planners of Hyderabad did not first think to implement this one-way system before destroying the trees. The city need not have been traumatised by the government’s unabashed destruction of nature. The administration would have actually earned some brownie points instead.

 

Cut first, think later

The entire reason behind destroying trees (the matter has gone to the Supreme Court) was the construction of pillars for the flyovers that were supposed to come. And now we’re being told that there will be only one flyover. Like really, how hard is it to assess something before destroying our trees?

If I sound mad, it is because I am. The state government needs to be pulled up for this fiasco.

Also, who is the government kidding? Did it really think that land acquisition for the project would be so easy? All of the VIPs and bigwigs of the city stay in the Jubilee Hills area. Did the government think they would give up their land just like that? The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) said in its press release that the new plan would result in the state saving Rs 800 crore by avoiding land acquisition.

It is the most basic rule of undertaking any major project that alternatives and other viable plans are checked before taking any major steps. Especially one that involves the destruction of trees.

 

Is the new plan any good?

Under the Hyderabad City Innovative and Transformative Infrastructure (HCITI) project, the government had proposed constructing a network of seven flyovers and seven underpasses around KBR Park. It was to be a Rs 1,090 crore project.

Everyone, including myself, had been wondering how the government was going to take up such massive works, especially given that the traffic disruption would be huge. And voila, in mid-September, a story on the plan change was published — that only one 4.3-kilometre flyover would be built.

The GHMC in a press release on October 5, confirmed the new plan of constructing only one flyover connecting the Nagarjuna Circle to Jubilee Hills. I’m still scratching my head over the state government’s logic.

For those who don’t know, Nagarjuna Circle is an important junction in the city that leads to Jubilee Hills and is often choked with traffic. Even on a regular day, it doesn’t take more than 20 minutes to reach Jubilee Hills from there, and now with the one-way system around KBR Park, it may take even less.

What I am most confused about is how the idea to connect Jubilee Hills and Hitec City with multiple flyovers is now being replaced with a flyover connecting an area that comes before Jubilee Hills. If your plan was to connect the congested roads around KBR Park to the IT sector, then this new plan is a joke.

Nobody asked for it. And we certainly did not ask for development or flyovers to come at the cost of our trees. If the state government has an iota of self-respect, it will honestly address this issue and tell us how it is going to compensate for the loss and take up afforestation around KBR Park.

All this for just a new 4.3-kilometre-long steel flyover.

Yunus Lasania is a Hyderabad-based journalist whose work primarily focuses on politics, history and culture. He tweets @YunusLasania. Views are personal.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)