On April 25, dna reported how Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath radically change the 'land use' of the Haryana sub region plan. Nath, along with Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, hijacked the NCRPlanning Board meeting in Delhi, despite stiff resistance from senior bureaucrats, and signed an order converting 10 lakh hectares of forest land into a "natural conservation zone".

What does this mean?
Natural Conservation Zone regulations permit construction on 0.5% land for tourism purposes. If you calculate 0.5% of 10 lakh hectares, it comes to 500 hectares of land. This will allow the builders' lobby to grab 500 hectares of prime land in Gurgaon, Aravali hills and Faridabad, and even by conservative land rates of the government, the cost of 500 hectares is no less than Rs 50,000 crore.

This is happening despite the fact that the Supreme Court has declared this area as forest land under the Punjab Conservation Land Act. The apex court has even declared that protected area and wildlife sanctuaries, as is this 10 lakh hectares area, shall be treated as forest area and should be governed under the Forest Act. The Aravallis have wildlife and act as catchments for lakes in the area.

Major objections were even raised from the Prime Minister's Office, Delhi government and Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) to construction activities in green areas. The PMO has directed the Urban Ministry to sort out the various objections to the proposal and send a compliance report to it.

It happened anyway
Nath and Hooda showed the door to environment secretary Dr V Rajagopalan and his team as they had vehemently opposed Nath's attempt to change the 'land use'. 

"You are not a member of the NCR planning board. So, your comments are not required," Hooda is learnt to have told Rajagopalan. And Nath is understood to have said: "If the environment ministry has any problem with our decision, they can approach the court." Rajagopalan apparently walked out after heated arguments. In his written comments, he strongly objected to the forest being converted to a natural conservation zone. "The Supreme Court judgment on forest clearly says that a hectare of land, with 10 per cent area under canopy will be declared as forest land and its status cannot be changed. And here it is 10 lakh hectares of forest land," he wrote.