Gurugam: The delay by public authorities in declaring the Aravalli biodiversity park as a forest may result in irreparable damages, as the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) plans to build a bypass through it.
Technically, the Aravallis are labelled by the Haryana government as 'gair mumkin pahad' – i.e. 'uncultivable hill' which cannot be held, occupied or used for agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, and poultry farming, among others.
As a result, authorities can use it for development.
Between 2005 and 2014, the state government labelled several areas which had already been earmarked under the National Conservation Zone (NCZ), 2021, with the 'gair mumkin pahad' tag, after which several licenses were issued for infrastructure development.
These areas included a 350-acre swathe of Aravallis land in Wazirabad hills in Gurugram, which included the best forest cover of the city.
Environmentalists said this was a deliberate move by the government to benefit the real estate barons in the state.
Meanwhile, NHAI officials said the six-lane bypass project – which will not have any service road – would require a 1.5 km-long, 30 m-wide stretch of the Aravalli biodiversity park.
Based on the information available on NHAI's website, two link roads will be constructed National Highway-236 with the aim of decongesting Delhi – one from Ambience Mall to Aya Nagar and another from Vasant Kunj to Ayanagar. The project is likely to start after February 2019.
Ten years of continuous efforts by citizens of Gurugram had transformed the 300-acre parched land in the Aravallis into a biodiversity park, where 4,000 exotic species of flora are now thriving.
However, unchecked infrastructure projects through it can prove to be the Aravallis' undoing.
Furthermore, since 2010, there have been no plantations initiated by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram in the park. This responsibility has now been entrusted to private organisations.