Trees misidentified, misjudged, wrongly marked and felled to facilitate civil projects in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD Grave irregularities mark the tree felling/translocation permissions accorded by the Hyderabad Tree Protection Committee, as discovered in two sample cases of field inspection, respectively at Falaknuma and Cherlapally railway stations, casting a deep shadow on the whole process.

Healthy trees with woody stems and high survival rate marked for felling, dead trees or trees with no canopy permitted for translocation, wrong marking of trees on the ground, and multiple trees marked with the same number: these are only a few examples of how careless and compromised the Forest department is in granting permissions for tree felling/translocation in the age of aggravating climate crisis.

In the first instance, a rain tree which had anchored itself on the Falaknuma railway over bridge years ago, and grown with full canopy, was marked for translocation by the Tree Protection Committee to make way for the Metro Rail expansion project.