The Telangana highway stretch where a truck collided with a bus on Monday morning, killing 19 passengers, has been at the centre of a National Green Tribunal (NGT) case for years, which has prevented its expansion. In fact, the NGT’s final hearing on the matter was on the same day as the accident.
The proposed plan to expand the Hyderabad-Bijapur National Highway 163 to four lanes has run into opposition from environmental activists, who say that decades-old banyan trees dotting both sides of the stretch would be removed as a result.
While much of the NH-163 has been four-laned, the 46-km stretch from Chevella to Telangana Police Academy on the outskirts of Hyderabad has not been broadened as activists have taken the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to court and to the NGT.
“From Chevella to Hyderabad, NH-163 is a very narrow and single road without even a median,” said Kale Yadaiah, a three-time MLA from Chevella. “We have held meetings with the activists several times to arrive at a compromise.”
After Monday morning’s accident, Yadaiah, Chevella Lok Sabha MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, former MLA Sabita Indra Reddy (now an MLA from nearby Maheshwaram), and relatives of those who died spoke out against the condition of the highway. “Expansion has been stalled for more than eight years as activists filed a case in the NGT, which had its final hearing the same day the accident occurred. The NHAI, which has submitted an alternative plan to leave the banyans, has sanctioned Rs 900 crore for the four-laning of the 46-km stretch, but work is yet to start. In the last week of October, NHAI took up partial work on four-laning the Chevella bypass road,” Yadaiah said.
Known as the “Chevella Banyans”, more than 850 mammoth trees planted during the Nizam’s rule dot the approximately 55-km stretch on the highway from Moinabad under Chevella Revenue Division to Manneguda near Hyderabad, the starting point of NH-163. In March, the NGT directed the NHAI not to go ahead with four-laning the 46 km from Chevella to TGPA junction. The tribunal observed that the Environmental Appraisal Committee (EAC)’s approval of the highway expansion fails to prevent the felling or translocation of the banyan trees.
A group of environmental activists under the aegis of Save Chevella Banyans had approached the NGT in 2019, after finding out that the NHAI may only relocate half a dozen or so banyans while hundreds may be felled to expand the highway. The NGT was also displeased that the NHAI failed to submit an alternative road alignment which would leave the banyans intact. Bird watchers, nature enthusiasts, and wildlife and conservation activists joined in, demanding that the banyans be left untouched.
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Tejah Balantrapu, a petitioner before the NGT, told The Indian Express on Tuesday, “It’s all mixed up, and the tragic accident has confused people. To clarify: the NGT heard its final hearing on Monday, and we are awaiting the judgment/order. I don’t know when they will issue it, so I cannot comment on what it will say.”
“As for us, we had given a joint statement with NHAI to NGT accepting their modified proposal. In addition, we offered a couple of suggestions with the Tribunal. The NHAI had submitted a proposal where a modified alignment will leave 765-odd Banyan trees in situ, and translocate some 130-odd trees a few meters away to the road edge. This way, the trees are integrated into the road project, which has been our ask. We accepted that,” Balantrapu said. “In addition, we suggested that NHAI also leave other large trees that are part of the Banyan clusters untouched. We suggested that the translocation protocol account for the fact that the moving distance is now considerably reduced. Finally, we suggested that members of the public be invited to the monitoring committee, which NHAI proposes to set up. So, nothing that will break the bank, so to speak. It’s just that these matters are out of the NHAI’s jurisdiction, so will need the tribunal’s intervention if it agrees with us.”
