Faridabad: Despite Supreme Court order, hardly any action on illegal farmhouses in Aravallis
Faridabad, October 16
With around 600 hectares of forest land under illegal possession, the authorities concerned are yet to launch any drive to recover the land falling under the PLPA Act in the district. The Supreme Court had ordered removal of all the encroachments two years ago.
“While around 150 acres at Khori village located in Surajkund area had been recovered after a demolition drive in 2021, hundreds of other encroachments continue to exist on the land covered under the PLPA Act, according to sources in the district administration. Though the exact figure of the encroached land in the Aravallis — at present — is yet to be revealed officially, the civic authorities in 2021 had announced that hundreds of hectares were under illegal possession,” claim sources.
“The area under encroachment has certainly gone up due to unchecked activity of the land mafia. It may have jumped beyond 1,000 hectares,” alleges Vishnu Goel, a resident.
Adding that construction activity in the Surajkund area had failed to come to an end, he said all types of construction, including farmhouses, marriage gardens, residential and commercial ones, had mushroomed despite it being designated as forest or conserved land.
“Encroachments have come up in areas in the vicinity of villages like Kot, Ankhir, Anangpur, Lakadpur and Mewla Maharajpur,” said a local resident. He added that the authorities have carried out demolition only on a very small scale which includes the removal of the boundary walls and some rooms in the past two years. Claiming that 130 to 140 farmhouses or banquet halls had been identified in 2018-19, he charged that the demolition had stalled perhaps due to political intervention.
“Though Khori village colony, having around 9,500 houses, was razed in June 2021, the failure to take action against constructions owned by influential persons speaks of the double standards towards the issue and gross discrimination,” says Sunil Harsana, an ecological activist based here.
The removal of illegal constructions was ordered by the Supreme Court in July 2021 in response to a Civil Writ Petition (CWP) filed in 2013, he says.
Rajkumar, District Forest Officer, said the process of issuing notices, deciding the applications and representations by those affected was on. No deadline has been set for the demolition or removal of the encroachments so far. The area under encroachment is much less than 600 hectares, he claimed.
