State-level meet to decide fate of Aravallis today

Officials from the forest, revenue and disaster management and the town and country planning (TCP) departments will discuss the delineation of the Natural Conservation Zone (NCZ) status for parts of the Aravallis.

A state-level meeting being convened at the Public Works Department rest house at noon today will determine whether certain parts of the Aravalli range should be excluded from the protected zone. If yes, these parcels of land will become available for real estate activities.

Officials from the forest, revenue and disaster management and the town and country planning (TCP) departments will discuss the delineation of the Natural Conservation Zone (NCZ) status for parts of the Aravallis. (HT PHOTO)

Environmentalists have said the decisions taken during this meeting will have immense bearing on the future of the Aravalli ecosystem, which is already under pressure from rapid urbanisation.

Officials from the forest, revenue and disaster management and the town and country planning (TCP) departments will discuss the delineation of the Natural Conservation Zone (NCZ) status for parts of the Aravallis.

The NCZ status is a level of protection accorded to all of the Aravallis as per the National Capital Region Planning Board’s Regional Plan for 2021. The status does not allow for real estate activities in areas under its ambit. However, the Haryana TCP had recently requested that certain areas of the Aravallis be excluded from this category.

TCP officials, on Thursday, said they would comment on the matter only after the meeting.

A key point on the agenda (a copy of which is with HT) is to decide on exclusion of 52 acres in Faridabad’s Sarai Khwaja village, where is real estate firm is constructing. “That matter is subjudice in the National Green Tribunal, so it is curious that the state is going to take a decision which might affect the legal outcome,” said an environmentalist who did not wish to be named.

Another point on the agenda is to decide the legal status of 1,200 hectares of ‘bhood’ land, or land that lies in the Aravalli foothills.

Environmentalists have been campaigning to protect these areas as they recharge the groundwater aquifers that provide water to Gurugram, Faridabad and New Delhi. A majority of bhood land is, in contradiction to the NCRPB’s Regional Plan, is currently classified as “NCZ status yet to be decided.”

This category came about in 2014 after the state decided it would first conduct ground-truthing to ascertain if areas categorised as NCZ merit that label. As a result, there are 12,800 hectares of Aravallis under this category. In absence of legal protection under the NCZ, these areas have been encroached upon. “Meanwhile, the ground-truthing exercise is yet to be completed,” the environmentalist said.

The forest department has requested that for now, the categorisation as “NCZ status yet to be decided” should be maintained. Forest officials refused to comment on the matter.

Activists warn that allowing the TCP department to make recommendations for NCZ delineation sets a dangerous precedent for the future of the Aravallis.

In a letter to the Prime Minister on September 14, environmentalist Vaishali Rana Chandra said, “The town and country planning department can make regional plans and master plans for a city, but they don’t get to decide whether a forest/mountain range should be or should not be. This is the domain of NCRPB & forest dept.”

More importantly, environmentalists warned, the agenda recommends exclusion of at least two other land parcels (in Sonipat and Mewat) with NCZ status. “It seems state’s agenda is to facilitate land acquisition for builders,” Chandra said Thursday.