Green loss gives city blues

Sagarkumar Mutha | TNN | May 2, 2016, 06.30 AM IST

Hyderabad: A public interest litigation filed by senior advocate, K Pratap Reddy, seeking urgent steps to improve the green cover in the city, has thrown up several disturbing statistics and highlighted the abysmal response of authorities to an alarming situation.

According to the petitioner, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that every city should have at least nine square metre of green space for every person. However, the per capita green space in Hyderabad works out to a dismal 0.50 sq metre against the national average of three sq metre.

Despite the deplorable state of affairs in Hyderabad, the petitioner said authorities have not initiated any steps to address the situation. The most prominent parks in Hyderabad date back to the 1950s, when they were conceptualized and developed. Very few parks or green spaces have been planned or developed by authorities since then, amounting to a complete failure on the part of the state, Reddy said in his petition.


He alleged that civic authorities have not identified and designated specific stretches of land for development of new parks in each locality , which reflects a sorry state of affairs."Failing to provide adequate green spaces and park areas for the citizens of the state is a constitutional failure and violates fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India," Reddy said last week, when the PIL came up for hearing in the Hyderabad High Court.

Maintaining that almost all major towns and cities in Telangana lack the required green cover, Reddy said that the dearth of public parks, green spaces and urban forests in majority of residential localities in cities is a matter of grave concern. "Hyderabad, once a city of gardens and green open spaces during the time of the Nizams, is now turning into a mass of concrete jungle. Neighbourhood parks and urban green spaces are slowly diminishing and becoming a rarity in our city. The burgeoning expansion of the city and the haphazard mushrooming of commercial and residential buildings have only been making matters worse," said the petition. Skyscrapers, high-rise commercial buildings and residential communities are replacing playgrounds, community parks and green spaces, he said. As per records, there are only five major parks and negligible number of small parks spread over various localities in Hyderabad.
Newer layouts in the periphery of Hyderabad, including Madhapur, Gachibowli and Kondapur, have not been designed keeping the need for adequate lung spaces in mind.

In fact, petitioner said, citing reports, that Hyderabad's green cover had fallen from 2.71 per cent to 1.66 per cent over the last 20 years.A further prediction is that by 2024, the city will be staring at a dismal figure of only 1.84 per cent green cover if steps are not taken. The petitioner stated that, as per records, Hyderabad has the dubious distinction of having one of the lowest percentage of green cover and per capita green space among all metros in India.