Centre seeks report from Telangana on felling of trees in Gachibowli forest

New Delhi: Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Thursday said the Centre has sent a notice to Telangana government seeking a factual report on alleged felling of trees on the 400-acre land in Kancha Gachibowli forest area near the University of Hyderabad (UoH) campus.

Replying during the Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, the minister said, "In Hyderabad, a very unfortunate incident has taken place. I fail to understand what kind of enmity the state government has with those trees and green area that they have to conduct an operation during dark of the night." "The state government felled more than 400 trees. Wild species like peacock are driven out and you can see that in videos and photos," he said.

"We have sent a notice to the chief secretary and we have also sought a factual report. We will certainly take action on this matter," he noted.

The minister was responding to a question raised by BRS member Ravichandra Vaddiraju on steps taken by the central government to secure the green cover that is being razed by the state government.

On concerns about huge vacancies in Pollution Control Boards raised by Fauzia Khan (NCP-SCP), the minister said there are 11,562 vacancies both technical and scientific and all posts will be filled up by month-end.

"We have given sanctions for these posts and we have also decided by April 30 all posts will be filled," he said.

On airshed issue, Yadav said the current government first recognised it. "In Delhi, we came with the idea of CQM (Commission for Air Quality Management) and gave it a legal status." "We have had very good experiments and in future we are going to take action on this matter also," he added.