Will Gurugram take a cue from Delhi on green cover measures?

Gurugram: Presenting the fourth budget, Delhi Government Finance Minister Manish Sisodia focused on environment and emphasised on increasing the capital's green cover. For long, the adverse impact of urbanisation and rapid development on the green cover has been felt in the national's capital rich neighbour Gurugram.

Barring the degrading forest cover of Aravallis, there have been more than 6,000 trees that were chopped during the developmental works at NH-8. The process of massive felling of trees has also been reported from other major routes of the city like Gurugram – Faridabad road and Old Delhi road.

Conceding that a significant green cover in the city has been lost over the years, Gurugram public officials also on various public forums discussed the plans to again create green Gurugram.

Sources in the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) mention that on lines of Aravallis Biodiversity Park, there are also plans to create another walking trail in the forested areas. Officials also mention that special provision will be permitted in terms of increase of floor to area ratio for green buildings in the city. There are also plans for the formation of data bank to keep count of the number of trees in the city.

Once considered as a preferred destination by many people for its green spaces, Gurugram today is choking under the depleting green cover. According to an official data, while the green cover of Gurugram district is a meagre 8 per cent while that of Gurugram city is only 3 per cent. This green cover also includes the forest area of Aravallis that too in a recent report by Wildlife Institute of India is receding.

Even though the state forest department had targeted to enhance the green cover of the city to 10 per cent and subsequently 20 percent in the coming years, it has not been able to meet its target.

Ironically, Delhi which has 10 times the population of Gurugram has a much higher green cover than its neighbour. In the late 80s and mid 90s, most of the people migrated from Delhi to Gurugram because of vast open and green spaces in Gurugram.