NGOs seek national park status for Aravalli hills

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, August 26

Various NGOs have demanded the national park status for the Aravalli hills in order to save and maintain the ecology of the region.

“We have taken up the matter at both the Union and state level to declare the Aravalli hills, especially the Manger Bani forest area spread over 2,000 acres, as a national park so that flora and fauna of the region could be saved,” said Jitender Bhadana, convener of Save Aravallis, an NGO.

He alleged more than 1,000 acres belonging to nearly a dozen villages had been encroached upon by the land mafia over the past several decades and the activity was still going on without a check.

He said it was a need to convert the entire forest belt into a reserve area on the pattern of a national park. The construction activities in the region had caused irreparable loss to the flora and fauna , he added. Mahender Bhadana, a resident of Pali village, said nearly 1,200 acres of Kot, Gothra and Pali villages had been grabbed by the land mafia in 1992 and set up nearly 265 stone crushers on the land. “The land was grabbed at throwaway prices by influential persons who told the villagers that the land would be taken over by the Municipal Corporation, Faridabad, for some project, but no such project came over so far,” he said, adding that several villagers then filed a PIL to seek action against those involved in the racket.