Over 30% of the trees lining the elevated corridor stretches marked for felling
A large number of trees are set to be felled and translocated for the six-lane elevated corridors on the National Highway 44 between Paradise Junction and Dairy Farm Road and on the State Highway 1, between Paradise Junction and ORR near Shamirpet, to be built by Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.
Felling permission has been given by the Tree Protection Committee under the Forest department for a total 3,298 trees, HMDA Director, Urban Forestry, K. Srinivas informed. These constitute more than 30% of the total number of trees on both the stretches, estimated by the Tree Protection Committee to be 10,593. Translocation has been advised for 4,230 trees and 3,095 trees are to be retained.
Two locations have been identified for translocation of the identified trees — Nehru Zoological Park and the Telangana Sports School at Hakimpet. Majority of the trees, 9,100 belonging to 90 different species, have been enumerated on the Shamirpet stretch and the Dairy Farm stretch housed 1,493 trees.
While the Shamirpet stretch is predominantly lined by Subabul (2,244), Gulmohar (1184) and Eucalyptus (333), a sizeable number were also species such as Neem (675), Pongamia (321), and Ashoka (321). Peltrophorum, Sissoo and others too were in good numbers.
'Tree Protection Committee members inspected all the trees, taken note of the height, girth and the status of the tree, before deciding which tree to retain and which to fell,' the official informed.
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