Chopped, not pruned, as ground staff cut down trees mercilessly in Hyderabad

In Hyderabad, authorities are allegedly cutting roadside trees down to stubs under the guise of pruning, harming tree health and violating WALTA norms. Activists accuse the electricity and municipal staff of illegal tree topping, causing long-term environmental damage

Hyderabad: Under the guise of pruning trees that grow along the roadside, the municipal and electricity department ground staff in Hyderabad appears to be indiscriminately cutting the main branches to their stubs, inflicting permanent damage to the canopy and the tree itself.

A case in point is Tuesday’s traffic alert issued by Cyberabad Police, which declared that due to ‘tree pruning works’, the traffic congestion is expected at Kondapur towards Gachibowli junction.

Instead of proper pruning, which is selective removal of branches to improve a tree’s health, the ground staff simply chopped down the branches, reducing the tree to a bare stub. This practice, known as topping, removes a tree’s leaves, puts it under immense stress, as it cannot produce energy, and makes it vulnerable to pests and ultimately decay.

“There are no proper guidelines on pruning trees. Trees are chopped down mercilessly. Despite our offer to translocate trees for free, a few days ago, on the stretch connecting Gachibowli and Miyapur, they indiscriminately chopped down several trees. They simply strip down the trees to bare stubs. The Tree Protection Committee has failed to take action,” says Uday Krishna, founder trustee of Vata Foundation, the voluntary organisation involved in tree protection.

The act of topping or cutting down a tree, which causes severe damage and even leads to its death, requires prior permission under Telangana Water, Land and Trees Act, 2002 (WALTA). Experts familiar with tree felling activity point out that ground staff of the electricity department often end up killing the trees by chopping them off under the pretense of pruning or trimming.

“It is not pruning, it is chopping off the trees, which is a harmful practice that, in the end, kills the tree. There is a need to save fully grown trees properly in a scientific way. Such trees have been there for decades and suddenly, authorities get rid of them in a day,” says Uday Krishna.