Raze illegal walls & farmhouses built in Faridabad Aravalis in 15 days, owners told

GURUGRAM: The forest department of Faridabad on Monday started sending out show-cause notices to owners of structures built illegally in the eco-sensitive Aravalis in the district. The owners have been given 15 days to demolish the structures.

A total of 600 structures have been identified in Ankhir and Mewla Maharajpur villages, whereas ground truthing (an exercise to verify data collected through aerial photography or satellite radar via ground visits) of illegal structures is still going on in Anangpur and Lakkarpur villages.

Land in all these villages comes under sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), as well as Section 4 (special orders) of the law. In June this year, the Supreme Court had directed that land notified under special orders must be treated as ‘forest’ in line with provisions of the Forest Conservation Act.

“We have started sending out notices to owners after. The first 50 notices were issued on Monday. We are still assessing the status of the land in Anangpur and Lakkarpur. After verifying the documents, we will be sent out notices to other villages as well,” said a senior forest officer.

According to the forest department, mostly small farmhouses and some boundary walls have been built on notified forest land in the four villages. All these structures have been identified through drone mapping.

Earlier this month, the Faridabad administration was asked by the Haryana forest department to list all illegal structures in the forest areas.

The SC judgment — in the Narinder Singh vs Divesh Bhutani case — was based on appeals filed by property owners against a 2013 order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had restrained any non-forest activities on PLPA land in Anangpur.