News: Realtors Can't Misuse Aravali Now-26.08.2017
Realtors can't misuse Aravali now
Removing all grey areas, which have been consistently exploited to give Aravali land away to real estate, particularly in Haryana, MoEFCC has told the NGT that the Aravalis across NCR can be defined through their May 1992 notification.
TNN | August 26, 2017, 15:00 IST
NEW DELHI/GURGAON: The definition of Aravalis, whose definition of Aravalis, whose ambiguous interpretation has for years led to many court battles for the protection of the ecologically fragile hill ranges, has been decided by the Centre.
Removing all grey areas, which have been consistently exploited to give Aravali land away to real estate, particularly in Haryana, the Union environment ministry (MoEFCC) has told the National Green Tribunal that the Aravalis across NCR can be defined through their May 1992 notification.
Known as the `Aravali notification', it says apart from reserved forests or places already classified as `forest' in government records, areas categorised as gair mumkin pahar (uncultivable hill), gair mumkin rada (foothills, pastures), gair mumkin be hed (ravined foothills), banjar beed (cultivable grassy foothills) and rundh (rocky areas between two hills) will be treated as Aravalis.
The same status is also to be given now to any land classified under sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act. All such areas in NCR will be protected and identified as Aravalis, the MoEFCC has told the green court.
The immediate implication of this is that it extends a protective cover to large swathes of land in NCR, especially in Gurgaon and Faridabad, and will strengthen the case of environmentalists fighting court battles. The submission by the Union environment ministry (MoEFCC) -made during a hearing into a recent tree-felling case in Faridabad where Aravali land was allotted to a real estate company -is also significant because the Haryana government has been claiming the status of such land has not yet been decided, leaving them open to real estate projects. Before this, the Aravali notification was applicable only to Gurgaon and Alwar (Rajasthan).
The affidavit in NGT also removes ambiguity around natural conservation zones (NCZ) -the other major area of environmental concern in NCR -stating NCZs have been clearly defined in the Regional Plan 2021 of the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB). The affidavit states: "components of NCZ, including `forest,' `Aravali' and `groundwater recharging areas' are to be governed by various statutes, rules and notifications of the MoEFCC, other central government departments or ministries, orders of SC (Supreme Court) and high courts and MoEFCC's notification dated May 7, 1992".
"Therefore, the issue related to definition has been adequately addressed. The NCR state governments have to accordingly delineate the NCZ..." the affidavit states.Since NCZs incorporate the Aravalis, it would mean states such as Haryana have to define the Aravalis as well.
Another grey area in Haryana is the definition of `forest', which too has been exploited, and the MoEFCC affidavit throws light on that as well. It says `forest' in Haryana will have to be identified by the state in accordance with the Supreme Court judgment dated December 12, 1996 in the TN Godavarman case and that the exercise of identifying forests and preparation of geo-referenced maps has to be done by in line with the Supreme Court judgment of July 6, 2011in the Lafarge Uranium Mining Ltd case.
The Aravali hills of Haryana in Faridabad, Gurgaon and other districts are covered with forests that var y from pristine, like Mangarbani, to degraded scrub. Environmental analyst Chetan Agarwal explained, "The Godavarman judgment broadly said all forests would receive the protection of the Forest Conservation Act, irrespective of ownership, and classi fication, and their condition.The implication of this judgment is that for the purpose of the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, `forests' would include all statutory recognised forests, whether designated as reserved, protected or otherwise, those marked so in revenue records, and all areas, recorded or not, which fulfil the dictionary meaning of a `forest'. Therefore, virtually the entire Haryana Aravalis fulfil the dictionary meaning of `forest'."
The MoEFCC said the decisions on the definition and demarcation of Aravalis were taken in a meeting of the NCR Planning Board headed by former urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu last December.In a separate affidavit to the NGT, the NCR Planning Board said the Haryana government is required to ascertain the status of NCZs. The Haryana government, which has over the years made several attempts to dilute the definition of NCZs, has started an exercise to redraw these natural conservation zones but hasn't completed it. "The Haryana government has to submit the final report along with maps on the NCZ delineation exercise," says the NCR Planning Board's affidavit.
The background to this case is that a real estate company had approached the Faridabad divisional forest officer, seeking permission to fell trees on a 52-acre plot it had acquired for a group housing society project in Sarai Khwaja, a village in Faridabad. Sarai Khwaja is recorded as gair mumkin pahar, which is protected under the Aravali notification. Between September and November 2015, the Faridabad forest officials had rejected approval for felling these trees because gair mumkin pahar's conservation status was "yet to be decided".Thereafter, ignoring the opinion of the forest department, which had denied permission for tree-felling, Haryana's additional chief secretary issued a letter on April 24, 2017, directing the department to grant the developer approval for felling trees.
A senior forest official, who did not wish to be named, said NCZs should have been decided by the forest department but Haryana had given the job to the department of town and country planning, an agency that dealt with realtors. "The forest department has limited role in deciding NCZs," said the official.
