A day after Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy stated in the Telangana Assembly that there was no wildlife in Kancha Gachibowli and that the protests against the government’s proposed auction was “politically motivated”, nature lovers and environmentalists on Thursday invited Reddy and his Cabinet ministers to visit the said land to enjoy the flora and fauna.
The state government has proposed to set up multi-infrastructure development projects and IT park in the 400-acre government land in Rangareddy district. However, environmentalists, quoting a joint-study by University of Hyderabad (UoH) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India of 2008-09, said the area is home to over 455 species of flora and fauna including herbs, shrubs, creepers, butterflies, odonates, arachnids, herpetofauna, birds and mammals.
Save City Forest, a group of neighbourhood residents and nature lovers who are opposing the project, said the land was being auctioned by the Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TGIIC) without completion of the survey by the Supreme Court-ordered expert committee on forest identification and without mandatory prior environmental impact assessment.
It urged the CM and Cabinet Ministers of Telangana to leave behind their big vehicles and visit Survey no. 25 on foot with binoculars, jungle hats, back-packs and water bottles. “This invitation to experience the beautiful wildlife will certainly bring a change of heart and the TGIIC auction may be unconditionally withdrawn,” Save City Forest said.
CM Reddy on Wednesday dismissed the protests against the proposed auction of the land. He reiterated that the land does not belong to the UoH and all that the government did was to reclaim it from a sports management company nearly 25 years after it was allotted the land.
He said the state government plans to build world-class infrastructure to attract multinational companies at Kancha Gachibowli to boost economic growth, he had said.
“There are no tigers or deers in that area, but some cunning ‘foxes’ are trying to obstruct development,” the Chief Minister had remarked, referring to the Opposition for allegedly inciting student protests and filing Public Interest Litigation (PILs) to stall the project.
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However, environmentalists said there was evidence of wildlife in the region. “We urge the Ministers, the media and members of society in Hyderabad to visit the Kancha Gachibowli forest, especially on Survey no 25, to sight the beautiful spotted deers, monitor lizards, rock pythons, peacocks, peafowls, spectacled cobra, common krait, saw-scaled viper, porcupines, star tortoise, russel vipers, honey buzzard, Indian grey mongoose, wild boars, rabbits, eagle owls, spotted owls, Indian pitta, and most importantly, the four horned antelope, among other species,” said Shivani U of Save City Forest in a statement.
She said all these forest species are publicly documented in news articles, journals, surveys and photographs by the university students, faculty, alumni and other wild life (wildlife) enthusiasts. “Reports of a leopard roaming in and around Kancha Gachibowli also surfaced in early January of 2019 sending UoH, International Crop Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and other institutions into fear,” she said.
Sharing photographs and news articles, the statement from Save City Forest said, “it would help the ministers speak to the forest officials who have always assisted the University of Hyderabad in transporting carcasses of at least 30 spotted deers that were killed by poaching or attacked by wild dogs between 2016 and 2017.”
Chital deer or spotted deer is the state animal of Telangana.
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