Hyderabad: Tree near Lulu Mall translocated despite high risk during summer

While translocation is an acceptable tool for conservation, experts are questioning the timing of the exercise, given the fact that at present Hyderabad is sweltering under a temperature of nearly 44 degree Celsius on a daily basis.

Hyderabad: Despite opposition from nature lovers and experts, a huge Neem tree located near the footpath that leads to Lulu Mall in Kukatpally was translocated.

While translocation is an acceptable tool for conservation, experts are questioning the timing of the exercise, given the fact that at present Hyderabad is sweltering under a temperature of nearly 44 degree Celsius on a daily basis.

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The tree whose age would be around five years had naturally sprouted right beside the walkway near Lulu Mall. Although it did not pose a serious problem to the traffic on the road, it was moved by the mall management and civic authorities to a GHMC park nearby.

Uday Krishna, co-founder of VATA Foundation says that summers are not the ideal time to translocate trees because their survival rate is just 5 percent in such weather conditions.

“I very clearly told them not to move the tree now. It should have been moved after the first two rains in the monsoon, but they did it anyway with urgency,” he said, expressing uncertainty on the efficacy of the translocation process. While Lulu Mall is said to have agreed to take care of the tree for one year, the incident underlines the disregard businesses have towards trees that come in the way of their expansion.

Uday further adds that the GHMC is falling short in protecting the green cover elsewhere in the city. Senior GHMC UBD official from the area, however, asserts that the tree was moved with care and in the supervision of experts on Sunday night.

“The road is being widened there as the traffic is high during peak hours and the footfall for the mall is also higher on weekends. They (mall management) had all the permissions from GHMC and the traffic department, so we had to move it,” the official said.