The Haryana government has decided to constitute committees in different districts of the State to examine the status of lands notified under Section 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), 1900, as “forests” with reference to a Supreme Court case decided two years ago.
Environmentalists, however, have accused the government of showing unwarranted hurry to examine the forest areas to help builders and bureaucrats holding land in the Aravallis.
Report in 2 months
Reacting to the government order to form committees, environmental analyst Chetan Agarwal said: “Haryana’s forest cover is less than 4% and even the dense forest of Mangar Bani sacred grove is not officially identified by Haryana as a forest. A State government policy directed by public interest should focus on completing the exercise of identifying forests as per dictionary meaning, and increase officially identified forests, rather than trying to reduce the little PLPA areas currently identified as forest, as seems to be the case.”
As per the orders dated January 16, the committees comprising Deputy Commissioner and District Revenue Officer among others need to complete the exercise in two months and submit their report to the government.
According to activists, the Haryana government is required to complete the exercise of identifying forests as per the dictionary meaning as directed by the Supreme Court in Godavarman (1996) and Lafarge (2011) judgments.
Even the National Green Tribunal has reiterated this, as has the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the National Capital Region Planning Board, but Haryana has not taken any steps to identify forests as per the dictionary meaning. Instead, for those parts of the Aravalli hills which are treated as forests, it is taking active steps to exclude them from being treated as forests, by its own interpretation of the B.S Sandhu versus Government of India (2014) judgment thereby denying them the protection of forest laws, claim the activists.
