Anantagiri Hills cleaning intensifies

Hyderabad, Aug 9 (INN): Cleaning of the Anantagiri Hills has intensified with the Telangana State Special Protection Force (TSSPF) and the Hyderabad Birding Pals (HBP) roping in local youth from Vikarabad to keep the hilly environs litter free.

The NCC cadets joined the officers and men of the TSSPF and the HBP activists to remove plastic and other non degradable waste from the vicinity of the Sree Anantha Padmanabha Swamy temple, the environs of the Hospital for Chest Diseases and other spots that are frequented by visitors to the quiet hill station barely a 90 minute drive from Hyderabad.

The TSSPF and HBP have launched a joint cleaning drive, being taken up once a month, to show by example as to how the surroundings of the facilities at the hill station can have improved sanitation facilities besides making visitors aware as to how the rich greenery has evolved as a birds paradise. HBP activists explained to groups of visitors as well as the TSSPF men and NCC cadets as to how the Anantagiri Forests are home to about 150 species of birds.

'A museum is to be set up to showcase the flora and fauna of the area soon to enable visitors to appreciate the value of the Anantagiri Hills. The disposal of hospital wastes is to be taken up with the district administration,' says the TSSPF Director General Tejdeep Kaur Menon. During Saturday's clean up, hundreds of syringes and vials were found lying in the bushes and shrubs just outside the Hospital for Chest Diseases adjacent to the road.

Mounds of tonsured hair, offered by devotees coming to the temple, were abandoned behind the shed where it was done, and it was found spilling over down the forest slopes. Even as the volunteers removed sacks full of hair for safer disposal along with the other litter, the temple authorities were told to make alternate arrangements.

Besides the temple, the hospital and its staff quarters, the only other occupant of the Anantagiri Hills, permitted by the Forest Department authorities, is the Harita resort of Telangana Tourism.

The TSSPF has been permitted to take up the upkeep and maintenance of Makta Meedhi Kunta and Makta Kindi Kunta of Serlingampally Mandal by the Ranga Reddy district collector. These are the feeder lakes through which water flows to the lake ecosystem that serves the larger Ameenpur Lake, near the TSSPF Academy, that is in Medak district.

In this regard, the Medak district administration has welcomed the initiative of the TSSPF to maintain the ecosystem in and around the Ameenpur lake area and requested the TSSPF to adopt the entire Ameenpur lake ecosystem to take appropriate steps to conserve the lakes and protect the biodiversity abutting the lakes.