Over 2,000 acres of Aravallis to be moved out of conservation zone

Gururgam: In a major blow to the preservation of green belt of Aravallis, the state government may take out 2,341 acres of Aravallis from the natural conservation zone after getting recommendation from the department of town and country planning (DTCP).

If this move is implemented, the government can go ahead and use this prime area for the building of roads or sell it to realtors.

The area that is expected to be taken out of the NCZ is come under the category of foothills.

On one hand, where the DTCP is planning to take the green belt area out of the NCZ while the other hand, the officials of the South Haryana forest division have disapproved the move.

The forest officials stated that they may deplete the groundwater reserves of Aravallis further and will have an adverse impact on the flora and fauna of the region.

The move comes at a time when the state government is mulling over the move of 10,190 acres of the area under the natural conservation zone.

At present, 29,431 acres of the forest area is classified under the natural conservation zone. Out of this, 28,570 acres is forest area.

Recently, a top-level meeting involving the deputy commissioner and officials of Department of town and country planning was held a meeting and send their recommendations over the issue to the state government. It is not going to be an easy task for the state government, however, to categorise this land under NCZ, owing to its topography.

According to official sources, 6,172 acres of the land comes under gair mumkin pahadi (reserve land of no utility).

Over 150 acres of this has either been encroached upon by the builders who have made illegal colonies, people who have to build the farmhouses and the villagers who have used this land as gram panchayats.

It is estimated that over 50 farmhouses have come up in the Gurugram, side of Aravallis. The flip side of unregulated real estate development in Gurugram gas been a gradual decline of the forest cover of Aravallis.

A major reason why Aravallis is exploited and continues to be plundered by the real estate sharks in the city is the lack of delineation which prevents Aravallis in Gurugram to be called a forest area.

Even as the matter of providing proper definition to Aravallis thus providing it with the status of the forested area remains pending in the Apex court, cases of real estate developments on the green cover area of Aravallis continues to be witnessed in the city.

Not only is the lack of proper delineation but dual laws also prevents the forest from conservators to protect the forest area of Aravallis.