SC Wraps Haryana For Allowing Construction In Aravalli Foothills

The Haryana government on March 1 got a dressing down from the Supreme Court (SC) for allowing construction in the foothills of the Aravalli and Shivaliks. Stating that it cannot permit a move that could destroy the greenery in the state. 

The state government recently passed a Bill to unlock vast tracts of protected forest land for development purposes, a move that is being seen as favouring real estate developers and miners. Amid an uproar in the Legislative Assembly that followed a walkout by the Opposition parties, the Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar-led government passed the Punjab Land Preservation (Haryana Amendment) Bill, 2019, with a voice vote on the last day of the Budget Session.

The Bill replaces the 118-year-old Punjab Land Preservation Act, 1900, which prohibited all non-forest activity along the foothills of the Aravalis and the Shivalik. The amendments to the old law means opening up of nearly 30,000 hectares of developable land across the state. Of this, 6,870 hectares of land is likely to open up in Millennium City Gurugram while another 4,200 hectares of land would be in Haryana’s industrial town of Faridabad. The amendment in fact means the entire Gurugram would now go out of the purview of the old law. The same is going to be true of almost all of Faridabad, where the state government plans to build a new city.

After the amendment, the old law does not apply to areas that have been notified under the Punjab Town Improvement Trust Act, the Punjab scheduled Road and Controlled Areas Restriction of Unregulated Development Act, The Haryana Development and Regulation Urban Act, the Faridabad Complex Act, the Faridabad Metropolitan Development Act, etc.

The new Bill might also give legal sanctity to violations made on the protected land in the past.

CM Khattar said the Bill was the need of the hour as much had changed since the old law came into effect.

“Today, laying a single brick has become a difficulty in the districts of Faridabad, Mahendergarh, Rewari, Gurugram and Bhiwani. The amendments are targeted to improve the system, without causing any damage to the environment,” he said in the assembly last week.