Chevella banyans: NGT directs the NHAI to include citizen representatives in monitoring committee

Save Banyans of Chevella, a campaign by environmentalists and nature lovers from the city, scored a rare victory against the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) when the latter agreed to change the alignment of the National Highway-163 expansion plan to accommodate in situ, 765 banyan trees dotting the margins.

The National Green Tribunal, where the road expansion project has been stuck for years, has given a go-ahead for the road, with conditions.

In a compromise on their part, the petitioners representing the campaign, agreed for translocation of 150 trees, to the margins of the expanded road. Of the 150 trees, about 130 remain now, which will be translocated as per the agreement.

The NGT order uploaded to the public domain on Wednesday, incorporated the suggestions of the petitioners, who sought retention of all the trees other than banyans which had been scheduled for felling in the earlier plan, but now are not in the way of expansion. The original proposal envisaged felling of over 900 banyans and 10,000 other trees, they said, in an independent memo submitted to the court, in addition to the joint memo with NHAI. The tree protection committee of the Telangana Forest department identified 415 such trees that can be saved, such as tamarind and rain trees, a statement from the petitioners said.

Further, their suggestion that the monitoring committee being set up to supervise the project must include at least two citizens has been accepted by NGT which issued directions to the NHAI to include at least two local citizens interested in safeguarding the trees.

A media statement from the Save Banyans of Chevella said a key decision by the NHAI is to change the translocation model. Instead of shifting trees to Mudimyal, as planned earlier, they will now be moved only a few metres away.

The Nature Lovers of Hyderabad, who are the petitioners in this campaign, have also compiled a list of locally sourced native trees that the NHAI has agreed to include in the plantation, and compensatory afforestation model for this project, the statement said, and thanked the Chief Minister Anumula Revanth Reddy and the Parigi MLA T. Ram Mohan Reddy for their efforts to bring the project to a satisfactory conclusion.