Official indifference denuding the Pune

HYDERABAD: State authorities seem to have given Hyderabad's `green' concerns a quiet burial. Apart from turning a blind eye to illegal tree fellings in the city, officials have also axed (it exists only on paper now) the three-year-old tree protection committee that was constituted to check such green murders.
In fact, environmentalists rue that most of the large-scale tree plantation drives undertaken in the city have also failed to yield results, thanks to poor monitoring by government departments.Here are some facts.
The tree protection committee was constituted following TOI's consistent green campaign in 2008. However, in the last four-five months the body has not met even once (they are supposed to meet once every month).
While its members from civil society groups put the blame on forest officials for keeping them out of loop during site visits. The members also alleged that they were not consulted while clearing files pertaining to tree felling.
However, the authorities offer a different version. "At a meeting held last year, which was attended by civil society groups too, it was decided that the committee would be informed only when there was more than five trees being felled.
In other cases, permissions would be given by the forest department. Since, we have not received any such requests lately, we have not felt the need to contact them," said P V Raja Rao, the divisional forest officer, Hyderabad, admitting that he independently allowed the felling of a tree outside an IAS officer's house recently and even gave the go-ahead to the management of Koti Women's College to axe five old trees on its premises. Neither of these cases was brought to the notice of the other seven members of the body.
But the government's indifference to the city's shrinking green cover does not stop just here. Environment experts say that the authorities, despite spending crores of rupees on them, have now turned their back on the many plantation drives flagged off in the city in the last few years. "Only this month we received a mail from a concerned citizen pointing out how the thousands of avenue saplings planted by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) on the Hi-Tec City railway station-Moosapet road in 2008 are on the verge of dying due to lack of water supply. Hundreds among them have already perished," said a member of Forum for a Better Hyderabad pointing out how the scene is much the same in the case of other such drives.
In fact, V B J Chelikeni Rao, the president of United Federation for Resident Welfare Associations, is now planning to seek an explanation from the municipal corporation on the unsuccessful plantation activities.
"About two years ago, the same body had planted 10 lakh saplings across the city. My observation is that the survival rate of that drive is close to zero. Considering that Rs 30 crore (approx) was spent on it, it is important to know how it failed to take off," Rao said, while also addressing the `bureaucratic' approach of the forest department to green issues. He said, "There was a case of illegal felling in Tarnaka a few weeks ago. We immediately informed the department to alert its local squad to check the issue, but they failed to act on it. The team arrived at the spot a good four-five hours later and by then the damage was done." Such cases of negligence, activists claim, have become the norm these days.
When contacted, forest officials vehemently denied these charges and claimed they were still very alert about tree fellings in the city. GHMC officials, however, could not be reached for a comment despite repeated attempts.