It is disheartening to see that the forest area in Telangana has been falling drastically despite the Forest Department’s sustained efforts. It seems that visible, tangible and effective initiatives are not being taken to increase the forest cover to 33 per cent, from the current 24 per cent.
In fact, forest area could be far lesser than what is being officially admitted to. There appears to be a continuous, deeper and wider failure of the Forest Department in upholding its basic duty to protect forests, reserve forests, forest lands and national parks, from encroachment, land use change, destruction and deforestation.
The fact of the matter remains that Telangana is losing biodiversity, forest-based germplasm and a wide variety of tree species.
It is important to note that precious public funds and taxpayers’ money are spent on Forest Department staff and salaries to protect and conserve forests. On the other hand, climate change is being accelerated due to the depletion of forest cover and rapid urbanisation, directly impacting everyone. Yet, the performance of the Department in maintaining and protecting the forests is abysmal, to say the least.
There are various embarrassing admissions made by the Forest Department in the affidavits before the judiciary in general. In particular, an affidavit filed by the Department in the NGT Appeal 82/2021 (SZ) in relation to the conservation and protection of Mrugavani National Park, near Hyderabad, Telangana is a classic example of the neglect.
Unfortunately, such admitted lapses do not appear to be mere aberrations but just the tip of the proverbial mountain of bungling and neglect in protecting declared national natural assets.
Not just declared forest areas, but even the boundaries of National Parks within Telangana are not secured. The Forest Department has not undertaken surveys of lands under its jurisdiction.
Forest land records are not available, or in the worst cases there are no records at all. Even though two to three decades have passed after notification of these Parks, the government has not created boundaries, through an authentic, verifiable survey. Forest lands are under threat from land mafia, government departments and various social groups.
Concrete steps and an operational mechanism to protect and ensure conservation of National Parks in the vicinity of Hyderabad, are absent.
Hence, the most protected natural resources, other forest areas in the state, are even more neglected. Because of lack of adequate attention and neglect, the quality of National Parks is continuously eroding too as reflected in loss of biodiversity and dwindling animal population.
The pattern of encroachments, boundary violations, lack of surveys, non-notification of Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ), illegal and unauthorised land diversions from National Parks and Reserved forests adjacent to them is similar in all the three national parks in Hyderabad, namely KBR National Park, Mrugavani National Park, Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park.
In violation of Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) notification and SC directions, the ESZ of Mrugavani National Park and KBR National Park are not notified till date. This denies protection to National Parks through the cushion of eco-sensitive zone even as urbanisation is intensifying all around.
The boundary of Mrugavani National Park was never surveyed either when the Gazette notification was published in 1998, nor anytime thereafter.
Before NGT, the Forest Department took a contrary stand that a survey of the boundary of Mrugavani National Park was done in 2012, and found it then to be grossly deficient (instead of 360 Ha notified, it was only 287 Ha). Inexplicably, despite the discovery of the serious loss of 73 Ha of National Park, no action was taken.
However, even this area admitted in court by the Forest department turned out to be false later. A court-ordered survey of Mrugavani National Park, in March 2023, revealed that the area of the Park is merely 280 Ha.
How and why the national park kept shrinking from 360 hectares (Gazette notification) to 287 hectares (2012 survey) and then to 280 hectares (2023 survey) are questions that need some serious introspection.
Mrugavani National Park has lost 80 hectares of land, reducing its area from the originally gazetted 360 hectares to 287 hectares.
This discrepancy was revealed during a National Green Tribunal (NGT) hearing about illegal power supply line towers in the park, also known as Chilkur Deer Park. It is being attributed to the change of survey technique, even though both surveys were done using GPS technique. However, there is no credible, authorised explanation from the Forest Department for this huge loss of land.
Sworn affidavit filed by the Forest Department with NGT is also in contradiction of Right to Information replies given by the same department that claimed full extent of 360 Ha for Mrugavani National Park as late as 2022 and denied the existence of 2012 survey.
In Mrugavani National Park, excess land was lost over and above the approved forest diversion during construction of Outer Ring Road (ORR) in 2006.
The Forest Department merely approved, without monitoring or securing the boundaries of the National Park, before and after formal approval. Despite loss of forest land, in all these 18 years, no action has been taken. The department has not initiated action against the concerned officials and did not take steps to recover excess diversion of forest land.
In Mrugavani National Park, the terms and conditions (T&C) of diversion for ORR in 2006 involved construction of underpasses for wildlife movement, as an amelioration measure arising out of fragmentation. These underpasses are not being maintained and turned into garbage dumps, cutting off the free movement of the wild animals and fragmenting
The Forest Department never acted to enforce other terms and conditions of diversion. There is no transparent, visible and firm action on the ground.
While approving the most recent land diversion for the TS TRANSCO project, the Forest Department failed to mention T&C of ORR construction or state the necessity of underpass and the need to avoid further fragmentation and allowed complete destruction of underpass.
No faunal movement is now possible in violation of original terms of ORR due to this serious lapse. There is an unapproved 11 KV line in the Mrugavani National Park region that the department seems to be aware of but never acted on.
The Forest Department did not remove constructions in ESZ of Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park that were done post ESZ notification and did not take required permissions under ESZ regulations.
The Forest Department is well aware that responsibility of safeguarding Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park is also upon CRIDA and GSI, given that their campuses are inside the Park. But the Forest Department did nothing to address concerns when no formal demarcation of responsibilities exists on paper.
Both CRIDA and GSI were surprised that they have Gazette notified responsibilities, when these were brought to their notice in 2022-23. Boundaries of areas allocated to CRIDA and GSI need formal notification and survey.
We would not be surprised if notified forest land of Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park has been lost, due to lack of surveys, lack of established boundaries and loss of land, similar to what happened at Mrugavani. In the case of KBR National Park, default ESZ has been violated by fresh construction, easily discernible using satellite imagery. The above is only an indicative list of known major violations and lapses.
Telangana Forest Department has to take full responsibility for conserving biodiversity in the 3 National Parks and initiate steps to stem the deep rot that has set in the management of forests.
Given the above-mentioned serious lapses, some measures are desperately needed. Firstly, an independent committee of experts needs to be appointed to conduct inquiry and audit management of all the three National Parks, establish lapses, identify gaps in management, affix responsibilities and prepare a plan for effective conservation.
Additionally, a detailed white paper for the citizens on the state of National Parks in the city of Hyderabad needs to be put in public domain.
The responsibility of filing false affidavits in NGT where the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests continuously shifted stance on fundamental issues of area, boundary and survey of the National Park needs to be affixed.
Furthermore, it is vital that all attempts to regularise the loss of land as errors should be negated. This loss is against National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) guidelines on National Parks. The loss must be reported officially, and citizens allowed to participate and submit representations. No sane person will agree with PCCF’s justification in the affidavits that a change in survey technique led to 23 per cent shrinkage (80 Ha loss) of National Park.
It is crucial to initiate the process to restore the Mrugavani National Park to its notified size and more. Specifically, a process be initiated to notify 490 Ha of land under Chilkur Reserved Forest as National Park to prevent the same fate as Mrugavani — both in terms of encroachments and disappearing biodiversity. The entire region is eco-sensitive and is under acute urban stress and needs lungs in the form of Mrugavani even more than before.
The Forest Department should commission an environmental impact and risk assessment of KBR Park, with terms of reference that includes the impacts of concretisation, continuous vehicular movement, air pollution, and rumblings from human-related activities, continuous blastings, construction, repairs and other activities, within a radius of 10 km.
The Forest Department should get involved in Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority Master Plan development and 28 other urban development authorities to ensure 33 per cent of forest zones are in the land use and ensure zonal regulations.
Also, a review of the Haritha Haram project implemented in the last 10 years is needed and a plan for effective and result-oriented Van Mahotsav needs to be put in place.
Telangana needs to revisit the objectives of afforestation, primarily including the objective of helping farmers in repatriating wildlife to forests, land use policy wherein the objective of 33 per cent forest cover is integrated and enforcement of laws that ensure forests, wildlife and biodiversity to survive.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth