KBR Park: A thoughtless, ruthless and axe-first government calling the shots

Thebirds of a forest once decided to tear down the great tree that held their nests to build more grand ones. They began hacking at once, and nests came crashing down. Then a little sparrow asked, “Why not just fly to the tree next door?” The felling stopped. An old crow sighed, “Had you thought of this at the start, the tree would still stand and none of us would have lost a thing.” Today, that crow’s sigh is the sigh of every Hyderabadi.

Hyderabad deserves roads that move. Nobody disputes that. What it does not deserve is a government that swings the axe first and opens the file later. Around Kasu Brahmananda Reddy (KBR) National Park, the trees are gone, the money is gone, and the plan meant to justify both has been thrown into the dustbin.

Numbers do not lie:

In 2024, the government sanctioned around Rs 826 crore under H-CITI for seven flyovers and seven underpasses around KBR Park, from Jubilee Hills check post and the park’s main gate to Road Nos. 2, 10, 12, 45 and Film Nagar. Even before a single structure stood, the estimate had ballooned to Rs 1,090 crore: a 32 per cent jump on paper alone.

The government’s own proposal listed 1,942 trees: 1,532 to be felled, 380 to be uprooted, and just 30 to be spared. By May 16, nearly 2,000 mature trees had been cut down or savagely lopped. Foundations came up near LV Prasad Eye Institute and Jubilee Hills check post; pits were dug at the Maharaja Agrasen and Cancer Hospital junctions. Then came the about-turn. In August 2026, a simple one-way system was introduced around the park; joint police and GHMC inspection found that traffic was flowing smoothly. On October 3, the GHMC Standing Committee scrapped the junction plan and approved a single elevated corridor instead. Let that sink in. A few signboards and a handful of traffic constables achieved what a Rs 1,090-crore project could not. The cheapest solution sat in plain sight, and nobody in power tried it before the chainsaws roared. That is not planning. That is vandalism with a budget. Why was a one-way trial not run before 2,000 trees were sacrificed?

They were warned-They did it anyway:

This was not ignorance; it bordered on arrogance. Since 2015, the KBR flyover had been stuck because the Eco-Sensitive Zone blocked central clearances and the NGT was hearing a case. GHMC itself shelved it in 2020. A year later, the High Court stayed tree felling and demanded an affidavit on the trees’ age and regrowth time. Every red flag was flying, yet this government dug the dead project out of its grave, renamed it and made it bigger.

Citizens pleaded with the High Court: no public hearing, no Environmental Impact Assessment, no pollution study. The hearing was adjourned. The court went on vacation. The axes did not.

“Save KBR” protesters reportedly faced midnight arrests. Only on May 18, did the Supreme Court halt felling within 25 to 35 metres of the park boundary. The government did not protect KBR. The Supreme Court had to protect it from the government.

A tree is not timber. It is life:

Many of those trees were older than Telangana itself. They sheltered peacocks and nesting birds, cooled morning walkers and filtered a choking city’s air. Sapling planted today needs a generation to return what one afternoon destroyed. KBR is one of the last green lungs of a city turning to concrete, and this government took a blade to it. No Government Order can raise 2,000 dead trees. No press release can replant them.

They count the savings but not the losses?

GHMC now boasts that the new plan will save Rs 1,200 crore: Rs 800 crore on land acquisition and Rs 400 crore on construction. On the losses from the plan it just buried, not one word. Boasting of future savings while hiding past waste is not prudence; it is evasion.

How much has already been spent? What happens to the poured foundations and dug pits? How much went to contractors, and what will cancellation cost? How much of the old work can the new design use? Lest one forgets, every rupee is a taxpayer’s rupee.

Worse, nobody can say where the new corridor starts or ends. One newspaper says NFCL in Panjagutta, another 7.5 km flyover to Muffakham Jah College, a third Nagarjuna Circle. No one knows, yet the approval is stamped. And it is sold with the same glossy promises as the old plan: six lanes, signal-free, no harm to greenery. If it truly is better, we will welcome it. But “trust us” is exactly what we were told last time.

Not one blunder but a habit:

This government runs on a five-step script: Announce. Bulldoze. Get rapped by the court. U-turn. Repeat.

Kancha Gachibowli:To auction400 acres beside the University of Hyderabad for IT parks, more than 50 bulldozers tore through green land over a holiday weekend, before an expert committee on forest land had even reported. On April 3, 2025, the Supreme Court stepped in on its own, called the destruction of 100 acres alarming, and told the state to restore the forest or see its officers, the Chief Secretary included, go to jail. When the highest court must threaten a Chief Secretary with prison, what credibility remains?

Lagacherla:In the Chief Minister’s own constituency of Kodangal, his government moved to seize 1,358 acres for a pharma village, using Section 10A to skip the social impact assessment and public hearing. Farmers revolted. On November 29, 2024, the notification was withdrawn and the land rebranded as “Multipurpose Industrial Park”. On March 6, 2025, the High Court stayed that too. If the Chief Minister cannot plan for his own constituency, what hope does the rest of Telangana have?

Musi:Estimates lurch between Rs 56,000 crore and Rs 1.5 lakh crore; the Gandhi Sarovar component jumped from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 crore within days. Some 10,200 homes were marked for removal, and the homes of the poor fell before a DPR, or rehabilitation policy existed. Comparatively speaking, if cleaning the Ganga costs a ‘mere’ Rs 42,000 crore, why does 55 km of the Musi need Rs 1.5 lakh crore?

Future City:Glittering renderings, sweeping promises. But what exists on the ground?

Four projects. One script. No legislative debate, no expert opinion, no public hearing, no environmental study. Decision first, thinking later; then a court rebuke, a U-turn, and a bill handed to the people.

(The writer is a member of the Telangana Legislative Council)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Dasoju Sravan Kumar