Kancha Gachibowli land near University of Hyderabad (UoH, also popualrly known as Hyderabad Central University, HCU), identified for auction by the Telangana government, has various legal owners and claimants.
However, this land remained protected, through years of dispute, with biodiversity and greenery thriving here.
With intensive protection it could have become a major forest as well, given the existence of ridges, valleys and water bodies, within Survey Number 25. It is also part of the Musi river basin and has been contributing significantly to the river basin flows.
Its groundwater potential as of March 2025 is 15.62 m, while nearby areas of Gachibowli report 10.8 m. The presence of high-rise buildings in this region also means heavy groundwater withdrawal.
This land, of 2,700 acres of Survey Number 25, which includes 400 acres identified for auction, is also a water sink. It enables enrichment of groundwater, even while high-rise buildings on the one side continue to suck out groundwater every day in enormous quantities.
Once this 14 per cent of land-to-be-auctioned gets converted into a concrete landscape, the potential for groundwater replenishment is lost.
Further, the potential for rapid floods increases.
Maintaining biodiversity, along with waterbodies, undulating terrain and natural water flows ensures a favourable micro-climate. It is lost once the green cover and biodiversity are bulldozed.
Thus, the issue of concern about Kancha Gachibowli is not about who owns the land but to what purpose the land use is being converted.
(Donthi Narasimha Reddy is an environmentalist and public policy expert. The above is an expert from his column in The New Indian Express. Views expressed are his own)
