The city witnessed a unique event on Saturday when several people came together to celebrate the first birthday of a tree. The event that took place at KBR Park was attended by Priyanka Varghese, OSD (Haritha Haram) to the Chief Minister, Uday Krishna Peddireddi, cofounder, VATA Foundation and Vijay Sai, the reason for the rare celebration.
During a windy evening in 2020, a Peltophorum tree was uprooted near KBR Park. However, it managed to survive and soon enough, caught the eye of passerby Vijay Sai.
shares Vijay “I walked in that area daily and saw the uprooted tree daily,” “While initially I felt sad that we lost a tree, I noticed that it wasn’t completely dead. As a part of its root was still in the soil, the tree was literally fighting for life. I contacted the GHMC
office to see if we can help the tree survive. I took their permission and replanted the tree on February 26 last year. Now, we are celebrating the first birthday of the tree, and trying to promote the idea of trans locating the trees rather than chopping them down during any construction work.”
Owner of the company S&S Green Projects, and Executive Vice-President of Telangana Real Estate Developers Association (TREDA), Vijay Sai has helped translocate several trees earlier.
“We started trans locating the trees way back in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. The first tree translocation in Hyderabad was of 11 trees from ESI Hospital to a project near Oakridge International School. All the trees survived. Recently as well, we helped Hyderabad Metro Rail translocate several trees,” he says.