No law guarding trees in one-third of Gurgaon as PLPA cover expired in 2013

GURGAON: Aravalis in 86 villages of Manesar and Farrukhnagar — making up for over one-third of Gurgaon’s total area — are vulnerable to tree-felling and destruction, all because the notification that barred non-forest activities in this region expired a decade ago.
Until 2013, all of the district’s 1,258sqkm area was protected under Section 4 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), 1990. But the forest department’s 1998 notification that guarded these 86 villages ended that year.
Since then, the district forest department has written at least a dozen times to the state government to revive this notification, but to no avail, according to the government’s response to an RTI inquiry filed by environmentalist Vaishali Rana Chandra.
The first of the 12 reminders was sent in June 2015. These were repeated in July 2015, August 2015, September 2015, October 2015, February 2016, January 2017, March 2018, September 2020, November 2020, May 2021 and the latest in February 2022.
Currently, 820sqkm area of the district is protected by PLPA. Different areas were notified for specific periods under the law that was introduced in 1990.
“The RTI information clearly shows that two tehsils were nefariously removed from the list of Section 4 PLPA in January 2013. There have been repeated reminders from the DFO’s office in the last 8 years to renew the protection, yet the government is quietly sitting over it. This is a case of malfeasance and deliberate ecological destruction,” Chandra said on Sunday. TOI has a copy of the RTI reply, dated March 29.
When asked, a senior state forest department official said they will look into the matter and “analyse the gaps”.
Section 4 of PLPA is one of the few legal tools that Haryana has to protect its tree cover. The state does not have a Tree Act, similar to that of Delhi, though it is considering one.
At just 3.6%, Haryana is among the states with the lowest green cover in India. Chopping down trees is also rampant in Gurgaon, mostly for construction of housing complexes and expressways. The forest department receives 300 applications on an average in a month to cut trees in the NCR city, TOI had reported last month. Most of these applications are granted approval.
“In Faridabad too, some areas have not been re-notified as PLPA. Tree cover is specifically important for such heavily urban districts,” said Lt Col (retd) SS Oberoi, an activist.