Times of India: Gurugram: Tuesday, September
18, 2018.
A week after the Supreme Court came down
heavily on the state government for turning a blind eye to ecological
degradation of Aravalis and ordered demolition of structures built after August
18, 1992, at Faridabad’s Kant Enclave saying they were built on forest land,
illegal construction by government authorities in notified forest land came to
light through an RTI revelation. The police training & research institute
of Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) in Bhondsi has been built on a 395-acre land
notified under sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA),
according to an RTI reply.
The requisite permission by the state
forest department, however, has not been granted for acquisition or conversion
of the land till date.
The building was constructed in 2004,
while permission for the land conversion was sought by the IRB in 2017. After
the IRB sought the permission, the forest department carried out an
investigation, and found out that as many as 62,000 trees of (sheeham, kikar
and other species) were felled to construct the building on the protected land.
Also, Kadarpur check dam was built on the notified land.
“The area has IRB office, hostel and
other buildings of the training centre, and the construction violates
provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980… Apart from this, the
training institute also has Kadarpur check dam, which is around 480 metres
long,” states an investigation report a copy of which is with TOI prepared by
the forest range officer, and submitted to the forest department.
Justifying the construction of the
training centre, a letter a copy of which is also with TOI written by the
inspector general, IRB, Gurugram, to the forest department says, “The proposed
land is along Bhondsi Damdama-Rithoj road at a distance of three kilometres…
Only the land to this project falls under sections 4&5 of PLPA, 1900, which
is 160.97 hectares (around 397 acres).”
Moreover, a request by the forest
department to provide land for compensatory plantation has not been looked into
by IRB yet. “According to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, the land for
compensatory plantation is required if the forest land is being converted. The
department had in July 2017 sent a letter to the IG, IRB, stating the training
centre should provide name of the village, records, and ‘khasra’ number so that
we can determine if the land is appropriate for compensatory plantation.
However, we have not received any communication yet,” said a source in the
forest department.
Ram Avtar Yadav, who filed the RTI
application, said, “It is shocking that the authorities themselves are involved
in illegal grabbing of the notified land. The area had over 62,000 trees. The
forest department hasn’t noticed the violations all these years. The forest
department only came to know about the violations in 2017 when the IRB applied
for land conversion, around 15 years after the IRB building was built. Now,
even after the violations came to light in 2017, the department has not taken
any action against the offenders.”
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