The green revolution

The green cover in the city is improving thanks to increasing awareness among people and initiatives by the government. Taking a refreshing walk at a park close to your home and not having to drive down to an oasis of greenery kilometres away, might soon become an everyday reality. The government and people are aggressively fighting to preserve the depleting green cover of the city and the endeavour has begun to show results.
The awareness to increase the green cover has increased in the last few years. Earlier, people lacked the right attitude but now - with alarming revelations about green cover depletion - the mindset is changing.
Says K S Reddy, IFS, executive director of Urban Forestry, "There are several
new parks and gardens coming up. The Saroornagar Lake park and the one in Vanasthalipuram, are the latest on the list." With concerns over global warming on the rise, it has become imperative to plant more trees and make space for gardens. The HUDA roughly differentiates parks into big parks and small parks. While the bigger ones require an investment of over Rs 2 crore and are located in commercial areas, the smaller parks can be budgeted at Rs 40 lakh and are usually in residential areas. The forest department also plants trees in specific areas or colonies on request. "We plant trees along roads, develop gardens and maintain them for a year, after which the responsibility is handed over to the colony authorities. There has been an increase in the number of such requests," says Reddy.
Sheela Singh, a resident of Safilguda, says "The newly built park around Safilguda Lake is a boon." Tree planting as an activity has also picked up. This is evident by the plant sales recorded by nurseries, close to Rs 100 crores. And with another Rs 40 crores as investment into urban forestry this year, the picture doesn't look all that bleak.
However, building parks in a busy city is also challenging . Getting empty spaces is a challenge. "Our activities are limited to making parks around lakes, in GHMC-defined 'open spaces' , or developing the existing ones," Reddy sighs. The other issue is road widening. The trees planted along the roads are cut during road widening. To escape this, the HUDA plants trees along road dividers and in traffic islands. Making gardens and lawns around lakes has its disadvantages too. "Over the years, beautification activities - like spreading lawns - along lakeshores has depleted close to 30 per cent of the area of lakes," says Veda Kumar, president of Forum for a Better Hyderabad.
The threat to the lake area is a rising concern. "I think authorities should plant trees rather than have lawns, which are water guzzlers," says Shakti Singh, a college student. But with the government taking steps in the right direction and people feeling the dearth of the green cover, it looks like the city remaining evergreen might not be such a distant dream.
New parks coming up at
Vanasthalipuram Sachivalayanagar Prashantinagar AS Rao nagar Patel Nagar (KPHB) Chinnathalakunta (Rajendranagar) Rajaramnagar Theme park at Osman Sagar According to a global norm, 33% of a city should have a green cover. In 2004, Hyderabad reached a level of 24% green space, which is a sharp rise from a mere 4.2% in 1994.