HYDERABAD: The government on Tuesday, in a release, said that it has taken necessary precautions to carefully transplant around 200 trees that were removed from the NTR Marg for the upcoming Formula-E race track.
Most of the trees were translocated by Tuesday and their survival rate is 100 per cent, the release said.
Further, it said that the route was altered to ensure that the felling of 20 big trees could be avoided.
The track finalised by the Federation International Automobile (FIA) necessitated the removal of the existing road median on a 600-metre stretch from the Indira Gandhi statue on PVNR Marg towards the Telugu Talli flyover.
The release stated that a 2.37-kilometre track traverses the secretariat complex and Lumbini Park, all along the Hussainsagar, comprising 17 curves in total.
Formula-E races necessitate 12-metre-wide roads — 11 metres for the carriageway and half a metre on each side to set up crash barriers — with fencing for at least 80 per cent of the total track length.
The translocation of the trees is being undertaken based on the recommendations of a tree-inspection committee in July. Two-thirds of the trees uprooted are small. Thirty per cent of medium ones and others, including royal palms, are being translocated to the NTR Garden and the Sanjeevaiah Park.
The trees on the central median, which bear yellow flowers, were moved to Sanjeevaiah Park, it said.
As per the release, “The HMDA and the state government are absolutely committed to protect the green cover and it is assured that all necessary precautions have been taken to provide for a race track by ensuring minimum dislocation and in the process ensuring that all these trees are translocated carefully.”
