Residents form human chain to protest amendment in land Act, save Aravallis

ibune News Service

Gurugram, February 15

A group of citizens, including school and college students, formed a human chain outside Town Hall in Gurugram today. They were holding posters and banners saying ‘Withdraw Punjab Land Preservation Act Amendment Bill 2019’ and ‘Aravalli Bachao’.

The protest was timed in such a way that Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s motorcade passed by at that time on the way to address a grievance redressal meeting.

The Haryana State Assembly on February 27 last year passed a Bill to amend the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), 1900.

“This amended Bill seeks to make the Act totally redundant in the state as it will open up 33 per cent of the area currently treated as forest land (under PLPA) in Haryana for urbanisation and real estate development when the state already has the lowest forest cover in the country, a mere 3.59 per cent as against the national average of 20 per cent,” alleged Vaishali Rana, a protester.

“All that is remaining is for the Haryana Government is to notify the Bill in the gazette and it will become law opening 60,000 acres of the Aravallis in south Haryana and 10,000 acres in the Shivaliks near Chandigarh for construction activity. Another 50,000 acres of the Aravallis are not even protected under any forest law. So, essentially, the entire Aravallis will be destroyed if this Bill is notified,” said Puja, a resident of Gurugram present at the protest.

Citizens living in the highly polluted cities of Gurugram, Faridabad and Delhi have been doing on-ground protests, including taking out a symbolic funeral procession march for the Aravallis, to highlight the grave danger looming over the oldest mountain range in the world.

“As citizens, we demand that the regressive PLPA amendment Bill is withdrawn and the entire Aravallis is protected under the law so that we can leave this natural heritage for our future generations,” stated Zenith, one of the protesters.