Hyderabad: The National Green Tribunal has stayed the Rs 30 crore road-widening project in the Kothaguda reserve forest area and has also stayed the construction of a Rs 200 crore sewage treatment plant (STP) in the Lingamkunta Lake at Serilingampally. The Botanical Gardens road-widening project would have killed one entire stretch of the reserve forest area. It is illegal to widen the road from 80 to 100 feet, and the STP is built on the full tank level (FTL) of the Lingamkunta Lake, the tribunal said.
The foundation stone for the road-widening project was laid by the Kiran Kumar Reddy government. Resident welfare associations and environment groups had protested. After that strict instructions were sent from the Revenue Department to GHMC contractors to stop work. “But despite this they continued the work, damaged the lake with two earth-movers, dismantled the sluice and the weir and dumped boulders inside the lake.
The revenue department then seized the earth moving machines and put up a board prohibiting work. The land that the lake is situated in is currently under dispute and is in courts,” said Thakur Rajkumar Singh, founder, Human Rights Forum and Consumer Protection Cell, who has been fighting to protect this reserve forest and the lake.
