The 163 km long stretch on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada national highway till the Telangana-Andhra border saw over a lakh people – women groups, bureaucrats, police, students – on a green overdrive on Friday. They were part of the mission to plant 46 crore saplings this monsoon in Telangana. Among them was chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, a farmer himself, who also planted saplings in Chityal mandal of Nalgonda district, to the sound of Hindu hymns.
After unfurling the largest national flag in India in Hyderabad on June 2, the record-obsessed Telangana government next wants to dramatically increase its green cover – from the present 24 per cent to 33 per cent by 2020. This will entail planting 230 crore saplings in the next four years.
“A campaign like this certainly generates public interest but the grand idea on paper can to be translated into reality on soil only by sustained monitoring,” says WG Prasanna Kumar, Environmentalist and Professor of Climate and Disaster Management. Experts say only 50 per cent of the plants will survive in an open area like along the highway, even with arrangements to water and guard the plants. The mortality rate will shoot up to 80 per cent, without care, says Kumar.
In order to ensure people’s participation, the astrologically inclined KCR has suggested that each citizen plant at least one sapling according to the individual’s birth star. Interestingly, the government has provided the list of plant varieties at the 4200 nurseries in the state, that will indicate the plant for each birth star. KCR himself planted a neem sapling and kadambam, a flowering plant.
The Telangana government claims a lot of thought has gone into planning `Haritha Haaram’ (green garland), as the programme is called. On either side of the road, flowering plants will be planted which can be uprooted in case of road widening. The stretch behind them will be with plants which can be relocated, should the need arise and at the rear, will be plants which will not be touched.
On Monday, Hyderabad will try to go one up on Uttar Pradesh that planed 10 lakh saplings in eight hours on November 7, 2015. The city plans to plant 25 lakh saplings on July 11 to break UP’s record in the Guinness Book of World Records.
However, environmentalists question the double standards of the Telangana government which also plans to cut 1394 trees around the KBR National Park in Hyderabad – the city’s green lung space – to widen roads as part of the Strategic Road Development Plan.
“Cutting existing trees will mean the microclimate of these trees can never be replicated,” says Shilpa Sivakumaran, Member of Hyderabad Rising. This in a year that saw all the four reservoirs that provide drinking water to Hyderabad, drying up.
The government on its part says its plantation drive will help, arguing that the advantage of reducing pollution by 55 per cent outweighs the loss of green cover by cutting nearly 1400 trees. It points out that the multi-level flyovers are proposed at six junctions around the 400 acre KBR park, at an estimated cost of Rs 510 crore.
