Save KBR isn’t just about trees , it’s about why Telangana has crores for MEIL but no money for pensioners, farmers, or ASHA workers
Everyone is talking about the 1,500+ trees being felled around KBR National Park for the H-CITI flyover project. That’s the visible loss. But the bigger story is why this project, and why now.
Telangana government says it has no money for:
• ₹10,000 crore in retirement benefits withheld from government employees. Retired teachers and staff have been on relay hunger strikes in Siddipet. Reports say 60+ pensioners have died waiting for dues they earned over 35+ years of service.
• 5 pending DA instalments. Employees and pensioners are losing ₹5,000–₹20,000 every month. Telangana is the only state with this level of pendency.
• ₹5,500 crore diverted from the Contributory Pension Scheme for other uses.
• Farmer payments under Rythu Bharosa repeatedly delayed and restructured into “staggered” disbursements because of a “tenuous financial position.”
• ASHAs, Anganwadi workers, ration dealers, contract staff — promised regularisation and pending dues, still waiting.
• Even regular salaries have been delayed.
But somehow, crores are instantly available for a flyover around KBR Park that nobody asked for. Metro already runs through Jubilee Hills, Punjagutta, and Ameerpet. 20 years of flyovers on the LB Nagar to Alwal route haven’t solved congestion there. More flyovers induce more cars, not less traffic.
So why is this project moving at speed while pensioners die waiting?
The contractor is MEIL (Megha Engineering). MEIL has, for years, funded political parties across the spectrum through electoral bonds and otherwise. When you fund every party, every government owes you. The debt gets repaid not in cash but in contracts. Public infrastructure becomes private settlement of political IOUs. The trees, the park, the ecology are collateral. And the media silence on this angle isn’t accidental. The same political ecosystem MEIL funds also owns or influences the largest media houses.
To be clear: MEIL is entitled to recover its political investment through legitimate contracts projects the state actually needs. The objection isn’t to the company. It’s to vanity contracts timed to settle ledgers while the state actually owes pensioners, farmers, frontline workers are told there’s no money.