Hilly today, flat tomorrow: Hyderabad’s real estate boom is destroying its unique rock formations

In Hyderabad, rocks older than the Himalayas are being bulldozed to make way for posh apartment blocks

In most Indian metropolises, lakes, forests and parks are disappearing. But in boomtown Hyderabad, rocks are vanishing. Gigantic rock formations, some of them fantastically perched on top of each other as if by magic, are being blasted, bulldozed or covered up to create space for real estate. Super-expensive villas with pools are cropping up in places where there used to be rock formations older than the Himalayas. These rocks and hillocks, forming a ring around Hyderabad, have inspired poets, painters, photographers and more recently, makers of Tik-Tok videos and Instagram reels. All of them might be gone soon, if realtors have their way.

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In 2019, a citizen’s initiative, Society to Save Rocks, filed a PIL in the Telangana High Court to stop the destruction of a rock formation known as the Khajaguda Hills in west Hyderabad. The court issued a stay order which said that “the rocks must not be disturbed or damaged or destroyed.” Then came the prolonged lockdown, when people couldn’t leave their houses for months. Once it was eased, trekkers and nature-watchers were appalled to see the destruction at Khajaguda Hills. The eastern wall of the rock face had been shaved off and a new road had been laid on the southern side. A small cave temple had become bigger. On the western side, hundreds of trees and rocks were covered up with soil to create a parking lot for visitors to the temple.

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“Everything was done within a few months. The climb from the western side was a tough one, through a grove of wild  parijatam (Nyctanthes arbor-tristis) trees. All that disappeared. We could find only the tip of a rock that we used to climb,” says Arun Vasireddy, a trekker who documented the destruction.

“The real estate sector is on fire in Hyderabad west, where people have become used to hearing muffled booms from midnight to early morning”

The tyres of his two-wheeler were slashed multiple times as realtors tried to dissuade him and other visitors. “I became friends with the puncture-wallah,” he says with a grin.