Gurugram’s green lungs face neglect during times of pandemic

GURUGRAM: With large parts of its areas already having been exploited, Gurugram’s lungs — the Aravalli forests continue to face neglect and with the government already having its hands full with the worsening COVID-19 scenario, poor maintenance of the plants and trees have become more common.

Data showed that of the 60,000 new saplings planted last year to pump greenery, 35,000 have died leaving only 25,000. According to officials from the forest department, most of the saplings died in the last two to three months as there were less personnel available to take care of the new saplings.

With large parts of the natural water reserves in the Aravalli already extinct due to large scale encroachment of the green belt; as temperatures rise, the groundwater level is expected to dip further.

With no water available, there are fears of more animals venturing out to residential areas for drinking water and food.

Most of the pits dug up as watering holes for the wild animals are being filled by officials through the pipeline water. However, most of the pits are not being recharged fully as the Gurugram forest officials are not being able to meet the capacity to fill the pits. Top officials of the wildlife department acknowledge that the lack of tankers and scarcity of water have made filling man-made ponds a challenge.

The task for finding out the total population of wildlife in the forest areas of Gurugram, Mewat and Sohna has also been held-up due to the pandemic. The officials were expected to install the CCTV cameras at major areas of the forest so that they could get a sense of the wildlife population. According to the District

Forest department, there has been an increase in the population of leopards but no exact numbers have been given of how much the increase is.

With construction activities having started in Gurugram, illegal mining especially around the forests of Nuh and Sohna has also begun. Around the Gurugram Aravalli there are also complaints of dumping of construction debris.

The worst impact of land grabbing, however, has been reported in the forest areas that continue to be exploited by the land mafia in the times of COVID-19. Spread around an area of 1,600 hectares, Aravalli in Gurugram has now been restricted to just two per cent of the total area.

The Forest department is already embroiled in the legal cases relating to 500 acres of forest land. There are over 30 cases that are being heard in various courts on the encroachment of its forest land.