Scores of trees being felled in Manikonda to make way for road project
The Hindu
Tree felling for a flyover and underpass on the Manikonda-Hitech City stretch sparks outrage as Hyderabad’s road expansion drives another green loss.
The ever expanding thirst for road connectivity on the western part of the city has claimed scores of trees once again, this time on the Manikonda-Hitech City stretch. Several trees were chopped down on the stretch for the construction of a flyover and an underpass as a solution for the traffic congestion.
The incident came to light after netizens expressed consternation, posting video clips and photos of the green massacre. Several users on the social media platform X lamented that with temperatures already soaring, the axing of trees is going to worsen the heat. “It is summer and our city temperature will touch 40-45 degrees C, and someone cut trees. Please investigate,” urged Bhushan, a user, tagging the commissioner of the Cyberabad Municipal Commissioner Srijana Gummalla.
Prem, another user, advised Chief Minister A.Revanth Reddy to sponsor a Bengaluru trip for municipal officials so that they can understand how to manage trees.
Enquiries with the Forest department officials revealed that the trees were being axed to make way for multi-level grade separators (flyover/ underpass) at Khajaguda Junction. An underpass towards Raidurg and a flyover from Khajaguda towards Tolichowki are set to come up there to prevent the jam at the junction during peak hours.
Tree felling permission was sought for a total 205 trees by the then Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in 2025, upon which the Tree Protection Committee (TPC) reportedly inspected the trees and issued permission for felling of 138 fully grown trees.
Tree varieties being axed include Copperpod (Peltophorum pterocarpum) and Tella Maddi (Terminalia arjuna), apart from Conocarpus, China Badam, and others. Interestingly, even while allowing felling of Tella Maddi which is a native tree, the committee recommended translocation of all Bismarckia palm trees which are an ornamental variety, simply for the reason that they were expensive to procure.
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