50 farmhouses, walls built in protected Aravalis to face bulldozers this week

Time of India

2 days ago

Gurgaon: Farmhouses and other illegal structures such as walls, banquet halls, shops and cafes built in the protected Aravalis of the city will bedemolished in a drive from the first week of July.
Fifty illegally built farmhouses — identified in a survey earlier this year — will be demolished, forest department officials said on Thursday.
Officials said show-cause notices have been issued for any new construction carried out on protected Aravali land in Behrampur, Ghata, Gwalpahari and Sakatpur areas.
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These property owners have been given 15 days to raze the structures on their own, after which the department will demolish the construction too.
A forest officer said, "We started giving out notices on June 3 and by June 26, around 50 notices have been sent."
Once the illegal construction is brought down, the forest department will also conduct drone surveys every month to ensure that no further encroachment takes place on the protected land.
The Aravalis in these areas are protected under sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA) and the Aravali Plantation project.
Chief conservator of forest (south circle) Subhas Yadav told TOI, "Notices have been sent to the farmhouses. They were given 15 days to respond. We will clear areas under sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA) and the Aravali Plantation project in Gurgaon."
"Currently, our team is removing encroachments in Faridabad Aravalis and within a week, demolitions in Gurgaon will start," he said.
Forest officials said the owners of any new structures — which were built in the Aravalis after the survey earlier this year — will be issued show-cause notices too.
Areas notified under these provisions are considered as 'forests', and thereby, they are covered under the Forest (Conservation) Act.
The FCA prohibits the felling of trees, construction and any other 'non-forest' activities without explicit permission.
On Sept 8, 2016, the forest department proposed to establish a total of 52 security outposts for the protection of nearly 1 lakh hectares of Aravalis hills of south Haryana.
The department also recommended that an "Aravali protection force" be formed and recommended that a typical naka should have at least four persons assigned to it for round-the-clock vigilance. This has never happened to date.
Despite several court orders, illegal construction is not uncommon in the hills. Activists criticised the govt's role in not being able to carry out timely demolitions and said not acting on the SC's order is allowing more encroachments.
Experts said on Thursday authorities should ensure continuous monitoring of the Aravalis due to the unusual land ownership pattern, which divides it among panchayats and private owners despite the FCA being in place.
"It is not clear why the govt has not been able to carry out any demolition even over a year after the SC order. It seems that more illegal structures are coming up in the protected Aravalis and no action has been taken," Vaishali Rana, a Gurgaon-based environmentalist, said.
In 2023, TOI reported that around 35 acres of Aravali forest land was cleared for the construction of farmhouses in Behrampur village, which is located just a kilometre from the Golf Course Extension Road in Gurgaon.
In another report in Dec 2018, TOI found that a hillock was flattened in Raisina village to make way for farmhouses.