Gurgaon: The Ministry of Forestry will begin a survey of illegal encroachment in Aravalis from Saturday.
Four drones will be used to conduct surveys throughout the week of 6,800 hectares of forest land that fall under the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLA), officials from the department.
The decision to conduct a survey was taken at a meeting led by Deputy Commissioner Yash Garg on Tuesday.
Referring to the commandment of the Supreme Court about the demolition of 10,000 houses in Khori Village in Aravalis, Garg has said eliminating unauthorized construction in the forest area is a “top priority”.
“We started a drone survey on Saturday in the PLPA area and will prepare a list of illegal structures found.
The action will be taken against the owner according to the law,” said Rajeev Tajyan, division forest officers, Gurgaon.
Tajyan added, “Four teams will be deployed with one drone each to conduct a survey.
It takes seven days to complete the survey.
After completion, the notification will be sent to the owner for demolition.” Every team will have three members.
Environmental lovers, meanwhile, showed that the illegal structure survey in the Aravali Gurgaon region was carried out last year by the Ministry of Forestry, but there were no actions taken against deprivation.
The detailed list of this structure was submitted to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Sonya Ghosh vs.
State of Haryana Case last year.
Now, after the fresh direction of the Supreme Court, the survey is being repeated, they said.
Last year’s survey report said at least 500 farms were built illegally in the land of Aravali in Gurgaon, concentrated in areas such as GwalPahari, Gairatpur, Sohna, Raisina and Manesar.
The report also has details of the total area occupied by them and their location.
“On June 18 last year, the Ministry of Forestry submitted a 308 page report to NGT about illegal structures in the PLPA area in Gurgaon.
Why did they need to do the same exercise again? This is an intentional effort to provide more time for the owner of this illegal farmhouse, “Vivek said Camboup, an environmental lover.
“The SOHNA Municipal Board has published 350 notices to owners of structures and illegal actions have been taken to 20 of them.
However, the District Administration and the SOHNA City Council have failed to stop illegal development and do not get rid of encroachment,” said Vaishali Rana Chandra, another activist.
In 2018, NGT had provided the government of Haryana two months to establish a committee and three more months to identify all of the forest land covered under the Notification of Aravali which came into force in 1992.
However, the committee, only founded in July 2019, after that demolition notification released for several farmhouses.
However, there is no demolition done.
Acting on the NGT direction, the Gurgaon government has been in June 2020 replacing the term “Gair Mumkin Farmhouse”, which has found its way into income records and helps the owner of the farm owner of a farmhouse from Aravalis notice, with the original term, “Gair Mumkin Pahad” (the hill Not classified as).
According to the report submitted to NGT by the state government, a total of 195 notifications the cause of the show was issued for agricultural homeowners for illegal construction in Aravalis.
Most of these farm houses are in Ansals Aravali Retreat, located in Raisina.