23-km-long solar-roofed cycle track laid without uprooting any trees: HMDA

HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has laid a solar roofed cycle track from TSPA to Kollur in a length of 23 km along the service road of the Outer Ring Road (ORR). The entire Cycle track length was planted with flowering and avenue trees.

B Prabhakar, director of Urban Forestry, HMDA in a statement clarified that no trees were removed for laying of Cycle track. “No trees were removed during the execution of the cycling track. About 5,000 small saplings below the 1-meter height were uprooted during the cable trench digging and were put in the nursery polybags, and transplanted in the same area,” the HMDA release mentioned.

In the press, it was stated that Udaya Krishna, Founder of Vata Foundation brought this to the public notice by posting Google Earth images from 2021 and 2023 to show the contrast before and after the laying of the track, the statement said.

“The Google images appear differently in different seasons and time periods. Any tree to be distinguished in Google Maps needs a wide canopy, any image seen in Google might be anything like grass, small herbs, stones, soil mounds, canals, etc. Green does not mean that it is s a tree. Hence, the allegation is not correct. This kind of allegation deserves legal action,” the HMDA officer said.

The HMDA also stated that during ORR Service Road expansion, from TSPA to Kollur, on both outer and inner sides, the trees affected were calculated and found to be 5,823 in number. All these trees were translocated to Tellapur and Shamshabad HMDA lands safely with the permission of the Tree Protection Committee and Forest Divisional Officers of Ranga Reddy and Sanga Reddy