[sustran] Hyderabadis will not rest till government scraps the SRDP (Strategic Road Development Plan)

[Vinay Baindur]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/City-residents-vow-to-fight-to-the-finish/articleshow/52426494.cms


City residents vow to fight to the finishTNN | May 25, 2016, 06.35 AM IST

Hyderabad: Hyderabadis will clearly not rest until the state government
scraps the SRDP (Strategic Road Development Plan).At least so it seems from
the barrage of emails that readers wrote in and the impressive number of
supporters who turned up for the silent candlelight march organised by TOI
on Sunday evening.

Readers, while lauding TOI for its initiative to save the green cover in a
city that `ranks very low in terms of the number of trees per inhabitant',
vowed to relentlessly oppose the axing of hundreds of trees around the KBR
Park and stressed the need to organise more solidarity marches and
movements to oppose the state government's `foolishly dangerous' decision.

While Vijay Bhasker, founder of a non-profit organization said : " T h e
initiative taken by TOI to save one of Hyderabad's iconic parks is highly
appreciable," Abhishek Asthana, who was part of the candlelight march on
Sunday, urged TOI to "organise more such campaigns".

Voicing his exasperation, S Sudarshan Rao said: "Most of the green cover
has already vanished from Hyderabad's horizon. There is no end to urban
needs and any additional roads and flyovers will not suffice. The need of
the hour is proper long-term planning."

Outlining the consequences of disturbing the ecosystem of a park that
"serves as a lung space for residents of Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills and
adjoining areas", Deepankar Dutta painted pictures of a very different KBR
Park from his memories. "Any form of construction or any alterations to the
present ecosystem, which has been built over the years, will have cascading
effect on the environment.The KBR Park area, 35 to 40 years ago, was an
open forest visited by aristocratic people. The Chiran palace was hardly
visible & it was lost amidst the trees which surrounded it. Now, however,
the park is already under threat due to rampant construction all around it."

Ruing the state government's `callous attitude' towards urban planning, he
added, "Widening existing roads or building flyovers are not the only
solutions to ease traffic congestion. A more holistic approach is required
instead of simply chopping trees mercilessly. In fact, before Hi-Tec City
was developed alternate roads should have been built for better
connectivity to the main city."


Aditi Pati, a student of engineering at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of
Technology , listed other instances of green murder."Over the past few
months, Hyderabad has already witnessed enough loss of green cover. Anyone
crossing Gandipet and Ocean Park can see that nearly 2 km of lush greenery
has been cut down stealthily in the name of road widening.Felling trees
around KBR Park in order to create yet another flyover will not only kill
one of the biggest air purifying units in the city but also cramp the
already choked Hyderabad, courtesy the metro rail project," she stated.


"Disturbing the walkway around the KBR Park would seriously affect the park
habitat and deprive the public of a muchneeded green space. We in Hyderabad
cannot afford to lose any green cover that we have, we need to add to it
and sustain it in a planned manner. Civic progress is not deter mined by
the number of expressways or automobile pandering planning. Maybe it is
time we took a serious look at planning guidelines and redefine what it is
that makes a city progressive smart and sustainable," stated Renu Singhal,
an urban designer who wrote to TOI.


Akash Brown, a resident of Tarnaka expressed his solidarity with the Save
KBR movement. "If we don't save the trees and improve the quality of air in
the city now, it can perhaps never be done.There are examples of cities,
across the world that have reduced themselves to heaps of dirt from
examples of excellent civilization due to the practice of deforestation.
Let's not follow them," warned Brown.
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http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/SRDP-to-ruin-environment-cant-end-traffic-snarls/2016/06/05/article3467061.ece

SRDP to ruin environment, can't end traffic snarls'

By Express News Service  05th June 2016 04:57 AM

HYDERABAD: A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the High
Court against the state government’s ‘in principle’ approval for
construction of multi-layer flyovers at 20 junctions in Greater Hyderabad.

Seeking declaration as illegal and arbitrary the order of the government
for according “permission for tree felling” for establishing new industry
under “ease of doing business”, the petitioner submitted that Hyderabad had
already experienced axing of more than 20,000 fully-grown trees during
ongoing metro rail construction.

Petitioner K Purshotham Reddy, an environmentalist, said the state
government’s Strategic Road Development Project (SRDP), mooted to solve
traffic issues, will destroy valuable natural resources such as KBR
National Park and Durgam Cheruvu apart from various other public and
private facilities. Rather than solving traffic congestion, the project
would add to the traffic and pollution menace, he said. Traffic congestion
in New Delhi is a live example that despite wide and large roads, larger
network of metro still cannot reduce traffic congestion. As for Hyderabad,
the government, in a span of 15 years, undertook many road-widening
programmes and constructed many flyovers but could not ease the traffic
congestion, he pointed out.

Most developed cities have responded to their traffic problems by
drastically reducing the road space for private vehicles, imposing heavy
parking charges, restricting vehicles’ entry into core market areas and
even demolishing the flyovers that have been built. The SRDP is not only
arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional but also devoid of logical
reasoning. It is of paramount importance that the entire SRDP be stalled
and the government focus on implementing public transportation and
bicycling strategies and then a logical assessment be made to understand
the real need of roads and flyovers in the city, he added.

The petitioner urged the court to forthwith grant stay of further
proceedings of the impugned GO Rt No.208 dated May 30, 2015 and GO Ms No.19
dated May 13, 2016 issued by the municipal administration and urban
development department pending disposal of the above PIL.