Charminar as a zone has the lowest green quotient in the city, going by the extent of space occupied by Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) parks, and the spaces with potential for growth of greenery.
According to data obtained from GHMC, the Charminar zone with an area of nearly 99 square kilometres, has only 111 landscape parks, spread across 1.73 lakh square metres. This is the lowest among all zones.
Khairatabad scores
The highest extent of landscaping is done in Khairatabad with 229 parks laid across 11.44 lakh square metres, for the zone has a total area of 76 square kilometres.
In terms of tree parks, Charminar fares better with 78 of them occupying over one lakh square metres, but all the parks are concentrated in Rajendranagar circle alone.
Less space to lay parks
Charminar zone, largely representing the Old City of Hyderabad, has fewer suitable spaces for laying of new parks. In a total of 616 suitable open spaces, it has mere 28, again Rajendranagar Circle hosting 23 of them.
Among the 47 major parks proposed in the city under the Haritha Haaram programme with ₹44 crore funding, only three are allotted to Charminar Zone, in an extent of 6.5 acres and with a cost of ₹1.5 crore.
As part of the action plan for Haritha Haaram, GHMC has proposed to plant a total of 65,000 seedlings in the zone, again the least number among all the zones. Officials attribute it to lack of suitable space for taking up plantation.
