Save Aravalli forests from govt axe: Gurugram villagers to Prez

Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurugram, March 3

With the state government all set to hand over 65 acres in the district to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to shift the Kherki Daula toll plaza, hundreds of villagers have approached the President, seeking his intervention to save ‘forest land’.

In a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind, villagers of Manesar, Kukrola and Sehrawan highlighted how 65 acres of panchayat land in the Aravalli forests was being diverted for commercial interests.

According to the letter, 65 acres comprising forests and 5 kanals of check dams and two groundwater recharge bodies were proposed to be handed over to the NHAI to build a new toll plaza to solve traffic woes at the existing Kherki Daula toll plaza.

“It is not just a toll plaza. Even a commercial complex has been proposed. For this, hundreds of trees will be cut. We will lose our pastures, water bodies and storm water drains. There are many animals in the area. Clearing the land will mean killing the forest patch preserved for decades,” read the letter.

The proposal also earned the ire of many environmentalists. They claimed that the state government was set to destroy an entire eco-system to provide short-sighted relief to traffic commotion at the Kherki Daula toll plaza.

“The planners and the civil authorities have a very myopic and short-term approach to get out of a tricky situation of poor management of the Kherki Daula toll plaza. To cover up for their incompetence, they are ready to sacrifice 20,000-odd trees in the Aravallis and a wide range of fauna dependent on these. There are check dams and water bodies which recharge groundwater for Gurugram. Destroying these will increase water woes in the area. The villagers understand the threat, but efficient policymakers do not,” said Vaishali Rana Chandra, an environmentalist supporting the cause.

She highlighted how this proposal was a national security threat as well. “Keeping in mind the recent attacks on an Army camp at Sunjwan in Jammu and Kashmir, this plan is a major threat. If this plan materialises, there will not be any buffer zone for the Army’s security installations and weapons in Manesar, jeopardising the set-up. It will be in very close proximity to the National Security Guard in Manesar and all this just to set up a toll plaza having hotels, motels and food courts,” added Chandra.