Telangana’s plan for ‘world’s largest eco-park’ at Kancha Gachibowli will be just as devastating

With a Supreme Court order halting tree felling that has stalled the Telangana government plans to auction disputed forest land adjoining the University of Hyderabad, the state is now considering an ecopark in the area, even as citizen protests continue.

The Kancha Gachibowli Forest or KGF, an open natural ecosystem with a mix of dry deciduous and wet deciduous forests, savannah, scrubland, rocky outcrops and more, is one of the few lung spaces remaining around Hyderabad city. Last month, the state government’s announcement to auction 400 acres of the land in this area, was met with public protests.

In response Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said in the Assembly that KGF has “no deer, no tigers, but only a few ‘cunning foxes’ who were out to hinder the state’s development”, attempting to justify the hostile takeover of the land using earthmovers. This sparked the university students, faculty, and environmentalists to take it upon themselves to put a stop to the government’s blinkered approach to development. They protested, stopped the earthmovers from wreaking more havoc, were detained and made the judiciary sit up and take notice of the systematic decimation of green cover in the city.

Taking cognisance of deforestation on the land, the Supreme Court...

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