Hyderabad comes together to save its green lungs

The evening of May 22 witnessed a mammoth congregation of nearly one thousand citizens flood one of the busiest streets of Hyderabad. Giving their lazy Sunday socials a miss, with candles and placards in hand and a raging sentiment in their hearts, this conscientious cluster from mana sheher (that's how people of Hyderabad fondly refer to their city) poured on to the roads for a candlelight march call given by The Times of India.
They walked for over a kilometre together, setting all societal differences aside.The cause: to preserve Hyderabad's lone lung space ­ the Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park (KBR Park) from a Telangana-government designed road project, which proposes to hack down over 3,000 trees in the park. With an expanse of a whopping 390 acres, the KBR park is bigger than the royal Hyde Park of London. Closer home, it draws comparisons with the Delhi Ridge as it is located almost at the highest point of Hyderabad -610 meters above mean sea level. It was notified as a national park in 1998. Home to over 500 species of flora and fauna and the majestic Chiran Palace -the abode of the last Nizam of Hyderabad, the park attracts over 1,000 visitors every day .
It is also the city's biggest carbon sink and its strongest wall against the onslaught of air pollution. Hence it was no surprise that a people's movement of such magnitude took shape over a few weeks to save Hyderabad's iconic park.Leading this crusade is a collective of young Hyderabadis comprising IT professionals, entrepreneurs, medical practitioners and social activists. Tied together under the `Hyderabad Rising' banner, members of this group -backed by a sizable team of eminent environmentalists, urban planners, academics and ex perts -have not just flooded the virtual space with online petitions, chain mails, and hashtags but also shaken up courts and commissions.
While the National Green Tribunal has temporarily stayed the felling, the AP State Human Rights Commission is expected to hear the case on June 6. The proposed multi-crore road project at the heart of the controversy has flyovers running over the park and piercing right through its forest cover. “The KBR is Hyderabad's cultural and historic identity .To disturb its natural existence would lead to severe environmental adversities,“ says environmentalist Capt J Rama Rao who has actively advocated the preservation of KBR before state and national authorities in the past.
Alarmingly, records show that the green cover of Hyderabad has dropped to an abysmal 2.6%, while the average in other major Indian cities is at 10%. “If we do not stop the government from destroying the KBR park, it will spell further doom for our city that's already reeling under soaring temperatures, depleting groundwater levels and rising air pollution,“ says Shilpa Sivakumaran, member of Hyderabad Rising, which plans to encircle the Park with a human chain on June 5, World Environment Day .
According to a recent WHO report, Hyderabad is the second most polluted city in South India, after Bengaluru. The city's water-table too has touched a new low of 12.5 metres -down from 5.5 meters five years ago ago. “Cities across India, including Hyderabad, are setting the stage for major urban disasters by making no attempt to avoid the destruction of ecological resources. Be it the wetlands of Kolkata or the KBR Park of Hyderabad, these signature features have fallen prey to reckless constructions,“ says urban geographer Anant Maringanti.