Giant trees with their leaves, branches and roots neatly trimmed will soon be making their way out on heavy duty trucks from within the sprawling compound of the broken down Secretariat buildings.
Vata Foundation, the voluntary agency, has began the trimming exercise and digging around the roots as a prelude to the gigantic task of translocating the 33-odd fully grown trees to a private land in Shamshabad on Thursday.
The government has permitted relocation of these decades old trees rather than allow them to be chopped off and sold as firewood following appeals made by environmentalists and green activists.
Free service
“We had offered our services for free because there are citizens willing to support this initiative. The government departments are helping us to uproot and lift them onto the trucks for the permitted batch of trees,” explained P. Uday Krishna.
The Founder-Trustee of Vata Foundation said it could take more than a week to translocate the trees and said the cost of the replantation and their transport is being borne by the private party interested in replanting the trees in its own property.
While appreciative of being allowed to save the fully grown trees, he is shocked the 'Tree Protection Committee' consisting of members of various voluntary bodies and headed by a DFO gave permission for 'felling' of upto 70 trees inside the compound.“Every tree can be saved by translocation irrespective of the age and species. There is no need for felling. Given a chance, we want to save and relocate those permitted for felling also. We have made a request but do not know who will take the final call,” he said.
Mr. Uday Krishna’s and his batch of green volunteers contention is most of the 300-odd trees, if not all, located inside can be translocated.
“There are many citizens ready to adopt and plant these fully grown trees in their respective properties. We once again appeal to the Roads & Buildings, GHMC, and the Forest departments to allow us to save as many trees as possible,” he added.
