This story is from February 15, 2019

Haryana bill seeks to end protection to Aravalis in Gurugram

The bill to amend the 118-year-old Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA) is said to have been approved by the cabinet and is likely to be tabled in the forthcoming assembly session. The amendment seeks to take out from the ambit of PLPA areas that have been notified under a master plan. Most of Gurgaon and Faridabad ecological preserves like Mangar Bani will go out of PLPA.
Haryana bill seeks to end protection to Aravalis in Gurugram
Aravalis hills
Key Highlights
  • Multiple government sources and senior bureaucrats have told TOI the bill has been approved by the cabinet and is likely to be tabled in the forthcoming assembly session.
  • The amendment, they said, seeks to take out from the ambit of PLPA areas that have been notified under a master plan.
GURUGRAM: The Haryana government is preparing to move a bill in the assembly to amend the 118-year-old Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), the law that bars construction activity in large sections of the Aravalis.
Multiple government sources and senior bureaucrats have told TOI the bill has been approved by the cabinet and is likely to be tabled in the forthcoming assembly session.
The amendment, they said, seeks to take out from the ambit of PLPA areas that have been notified under a master plan.
Should this go through, Delhi’s immediate neighbourhood will feel the maximum impact since all of Gurgaon, most of Faridabad and ecological preserves like Mangar Bani will go out of PLPA. The law, which bars non-forest activity in areas notified under it, covers nearly 20,200 hectares in south Haryana, of which around 7,000 hectares are in Gurgaon and a little over 4,000 hectares in Faridabad. PLPA also covers some portions of the Shivalik ranges in northern Haryana.
Areas

A senior forest department officer summed up the consequence of the move, saying, “The forest department should be closed as it has will have no role anymore. It is better to shut the department and transfer officers to other departments.” Haryana has India’s lowest forest cover (3.59%).
Two senior ministers, including forest minister Rao Narbir Singh, however, said the bill was yet to be cleared by the cabinet. “The bill is only proposed, but has not been cleared by the cabinet yet,” Narbir told TOI.

PLPA, a law that was enacted to preserve the slopes of foothills in the hilly areas of Punjab and Haryana, has remained in effect through many strange turns that land laws have taken in the state, which have resulted in most of the Aravalis being categorised as revenue land, under the revenue department rather than the forest department.
The paradoxical situation this created was that land under PLPA, on which construction was barred, came to have legal private ownership. This is why all kinds of illegal construction became rampant. If PLPA is lifted, all of this becomes legal in a single stroke. It will also allow the urban development authority, HSVP, as well as private developers who have had several real estate proposals turned down due to PLPA being in force, to potentially access a very large land bank.
Officials said the amendment gives ‘post facto’ approval to existing violations and encroachments (including the controversial Kant Enclave in Faridabad and Anangpur village, the first whose land was privatised in the ’70s in Haryana). “The bill states that since construction has already been made on land under PLPA in the areas covered by development plans, the amendment is to help citizens as their properties can’t be termed illegal. This is the first time in the history of Haryana that the status of a major part of the land will be changed,” said a senior officer, requesting anonymity.
Legal experts said amending PLPA will weaken Aravalis’ legal shield but it will not be easy to open up land to real estate, pointing out that the Aravalis draw protection from several Supreme Court orders, the Centre’s Aravali Notification of 1992 as well as areas marked as natural conservation zones.
“Various Supreme Court orders and directions of the National Green Tribunal will still be applicable. For instance, the areas that are PLPA as well as deemed forest will remain forest. However, the issue is that the Haryana government hasn’t yet completed identification of forest (what constitutes it). This may lead to confusion,” said advocate Rahul Choudhary.
The amendment will also drastically reduce the role of the forest department in the management of the Aravalis. “If PLPA is lifted, we will have no control over the area,” said a senior forest official, adding no views were sought from the department before the amendment was proposed.
Environmentalists alleged this step was taken to win the favour of the real estate lobby before the elections. “It is probably the first time any government has tried to amend a central law without seeking approval from the Supreme Court which, for many years, has been raising concern about degradation of the Aravalis,” said Vivek Kamboj, an environmentalist.
Environmentalists also pointed out that an increase in real estate activity on PLPA area is likely to have an adverse impact on the groundwater table, and on wildlife species in the Aravalis. There is also the other big concern of desertification speeding in Delhi-NCR. “It seems policy makers are only favouring interests of real estate barons who will sell expensive flats to unsuspecting citizens in a concrete Aravali. There is no place for wildlife and green cover,” said Chetan Agarwal, an environmental analyst.
The state government has been trying to amend the PLPA for the last two years. In 2017, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, while addressing a seminar at a private university in Gurgaon, spoke of the need to amend PLPA. He reasoned that change cannot be avoided since areas with ‘urban structures’ in the Aravalis should not fall under PLPA. A committee was set up in 2017 under the chief secretary to examine if PLPA areas are forests.
The PLPA, enacted in 1900, was the earliest legal protection to the Aravalis given by the British.
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