Hyderabad H-CITI project impacts green cover near KBR Park stretch

Tree removal for Hyderabad’s H-CITI infrastructure project has impacted greenery along a key stretch near KBR Park. GHMC says necessary permissions were obtained and measures are in place to minimise loss as road and excavation work progresses.

Hyderabad: The proposal for a steel flyover and underpass under the Hyderabad City Innovative and Transformative Infrastructure (H-CITI) project has impacted the extensive greenery along the stretch from Indo American Cancer Hospital to Maharaja Agrasen Island in the heart of the city.

In the past couple of weeks, the GHMC urban biodiversity wing has chopped off trees for the mega road network infrastructure. As a result, several trees that covered two traffic islands at the Indo-American Cancer Hospital and provided shade for cancer hospital patients and commuters passing through the stretch have been chopped down.

---

The deep-earth excavation works between Telangana Bhavan and Maharaja Agrasen Island have been progressing at a brisk pace, with machines deployed to break huge boulders found during the earth excavation works, also along this stretch.

The GHMC Chief Engineer (Maintenance), Sahadev Ratnakar, told ‘Telangana Today’, “GHMC Urban Biodiversity (UBD) wing has taken all necessary clearance from the Forest department to remove trees for the proposed steel flyover and an underpass from Indo-American Cancer Hospital to Agrasen Island, which is also proposed in this stretch.”

Regarding green loss, the GHMC official said that the GHMC UBD wing does not chop off trees, only pruning them, and trees that are removed from the locations are shifted for translocation. Measures have been taken to minimise loss of greenery on this stretch.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the exercise for demarcation process at the centre medians along this stretch was observed.

GHMC took up various infrastructure works under the H-CITI project to create a signal-free road network around KBR Park, incorporating 7 steel flyovers and 7 underpasses, to alleviate congestion at critical junctions. The project covers Jubilee Hills Check Post, KBR Park Entrance, Film Nagar, and Maharaja Agrasen junctions.