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The Supreme Court appointed Central Empowered Committee’s (CEC) in its final report submitted on Thursday, May 15, recommended for Kancha Gachibowli to be restored to its original shape. The committee's recommendations come just weeks after the Telangana government cleared vegetation and felled trees in the Kancha Gachibowli area, which overlaps with parts of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) campus. The move had sparked widespread protests from students and environmental activists, who accused the Congress-led state government of attempting to auction off one of Hyderabad’s few remaining green spaces for IT and infrastructure projects.
The 400-acre site has been at the center of a heated debate, with students calling it one of the city’s vital “lung spaces.” Environmentalists have also expressed concern over the potential ecological damage that large-scale development could inflict on the area.
In its report, the CEC not only affirmed that Kancha Gachibowli exhibits all characteristics of a forest but also called for its designation as a “Conservation Reserve” under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. This legal protection would place the land under the care of the state Forest Department and provide safeguards against commercial exploitation.
“Prima facie, based on its natural appearance and known ecological richness, the entire area measuring Ac. 2374-02 guntas, including the subject land in Kancha Gachibowli village—recorded as ‘Kancha Astabal Poramboke Sarkari’ and assigned to the University—appears to have all characteristics of a forest,” the report stated.
The CEC had earlier reached this conclusion after examining before-and-after photographs submitted by citizens and mapping the region’s biodiversity zones—identified in a 2009 WWF study of the University of Hyderabad—onto current satellite imagery using Google Earth.
In addition to recommending the restoration of the area’s natural vegetation, the committee has urged the Forest Department to undertake soil and moisture conservation activities and to prepare a comprehensive wildlife management plan. It also emphasized the need for protection of local waterbodies by declaring them as wetlands under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017.
The report further recommends that the state conduct an ecological assessment of the region and establish wildlife committees to identify and document other forest-like areas in Telangana in line with the Supreme Court’s directives on forest identification.
Also Read: Kancha Gachibowli has all characteristics of a forest says SC’s CEC