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Eighty hectares of land of Mrugavani national park, one of the three national parks in the city owned by the forest department, are missing. This shocking fact came to light during a recent hearing at the National Green Tribunal in a case related to illegal erection of power supply line towers through the Mrugavani park, also popularly referred to as the Chilkur deer park. In the case on the power lines, the NGT imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on TG Transco for erecting high tension quad towers through Mrugavani, instead of the approved monopoles.

The NGT’s southern branch in Chennai, delivered its judgement in the case on May 21. The NGT also disagreed with Transco which sought to explain that the deviation from the original plan was to save on project costs. The towers for the power lines through the national park are part of the 42-km long 400 KV Kethireddypally-Raidurgam transmission line project, for which Transco erected five towers in the protected area.



The total cost of the project was Rs 17,663 crore and was executed by Megha Engineering Infra Ltd (MEIL) for Transco. It was during the hearing of the case that the forest department admitted that against the 360 hectares of the park area as notified in the official Gazette, the actual park area was 287 hectares. The forest patch close to Himayatsagar and Osmansagar, was notified as a national park in 1988, but the first ever survey was done only in 2023, that too following orders from the court.

In this survey, the dep.

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