Wider highway through tiger corridor gets nod in Telangana

Hyderabad: The recently reconstituted State Board for Wildlife cleared a slew of projects in different forest areas of Telangana on Saturday.

The meeting, chaired by the board's vice-chairman and forest minister A. Indrakaran Reddy, was skipped by three TRS MLAs — Koneru Konappa, Marri Janardhan Reddy, and Vanama Venkateswara Rao.

Permissions are being given without causing any damage to the forests or the environment, the minister said.

Principal chief conservator of forests (head of the forest force) R. Shobha, who gave a presentation on the proposals, said that all necessary precautions have been taken to ensure that there is no damage to forest areas or wildlife due to the proposals.

Among the proposals approved were conversion of a 94.602-km portion of National Highway 363 between Mancherial and Chandrapur in Maharashtra into a four-lane highway.

Part of the road falls in the crucial tiger movement corridor.

Also approved were a bunch of road projects in Eturunagaram wildlife sanctuary in the erstwhile combined district of Warangal, laying of optical fibre by Reliance Jio Infocomm and Vindhya Telelinks through forest and wildlife areas in the erstwhile Warangal and Adilabad districts.

The board also discussed permission for construction of a commercial complex in the eco-sensitive zone of the KBR National Park in Banjara Hills.

Some proposals were not approved as the user agencies had not submitted the required information in a proper format and details were insufficient.