Gurugram: To save Aravallis, protesters seek scrapping of Forest Amendment Bill 2023

Gurugram, July 21

As the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 is all set to be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament, residents in the Aravalli areas and environmentalists are out in protest across Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan.

According to them, the current form of the FCA Bill would make Aravalli areas vulnerable to being sold, diverted, cleared and exploited without any regulatory oversight. They are demanding that it be scrapped.

The protests were staged across Gurugram, Faridabad, Delhi and Jaipur seeking protection of the dying Aravallis. The protesters were joined by children who demanded their right to get these forests as legacy.

The protesters insist that the FCA Bill 2023, if enacted in its current avatar, would increase the rate of desertification and be disastrous for forests, air quality, water security, the people and wildlife of the entire Aravalli belt.

The protesters from Haryana insisted that the Bill threatened forest patches like Mangar Bani in Faridabad which is recorded as ‘gair mumkin pahad’ and is awaiting recognition as a forest by Haryana.

“The FCA Bill will decimate such lands across the 690 km Aravalli range spread over four states and in the rest of India. Also, hugely at risk are 50,000 acres of Haryana Aravallis as these forests have not yet been notified as ‘deemed forests’. The Supreme Court has repeatedly directed the State of Haryana to identify forests as per dictionary meaning in Godavarman (1996) judgment but the government has failed to carry out this exercise,” said Neelam Ahluwalia, founder member of the Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement.

According to study done by Central University of Rajasthan, Ajmer, on assessment of land use dynamics of the Aravalli range, over a period of 44 years (1975-2019), forests in the Aravallis reduced by 7.6 per cent i.e. a whopping 5,772.7 sq km of forest cover.

The activists fear that the latest Bill would multiply the rate of loss.