With just eight days left for the present UPA-2 government, the question being asked is why is urban development minister Kamal Nath pushing for the Aravalis to be declared a Natural Conservation Zone (NCZ) even while this move has been opposed tooth and nail by both the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and the PMO. Giving the Aravalis NCZ nomenclature will allow for construction of 0.5 per cent of land for tourism purposes. Chetan Aggarwal, an independent environment analyst, points out that the prime forest land is spread across ten lakh hectares and 0.5 per cent of this land will work out to 500 hectares. Environmentalists point out that given the current rates in Gurgaon and Faridabad, one hectare works out to Rs 100 crore and 500 hectares will fetch a bonanza of Rs 50,000 crore. “No wonder both Mr Nath and chief minister Hooda have been pushing for this land conversion,” he added. The PMO wrote several letters to Mr Nath asking him not to go against the MoEF strictures. In fact, they did not allow a meeting on this subject to take place during February and March but Mr Nath succeeded in getting permission from the Election Commission to hold a meeting of the NCR Planning Board in April. But what is being overlooked by these Congress politicians is that the Aravalis are the natural ground water recharge zone for both Haryana and Delhi. The Supreme Court has given an explicit order that the 10 lakh hectares of forest area must be protected under the Forest Act. Already, in a move to protect these forests in Delhi, the National Green Tribunal had ordered large-scale demolition of all encroachments in the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary. Deputy conservator of forests Nisheeth Saxena, who led the demolition, pointed out that they had succeeded in reclaiming notified reserved forest land across Asola, Bhatti and Maidan Garhi. With NGT keeping a hawk’s eye on development in the NCR, the Haryana government has appealed to the Supreme Court, stating that the Aravalis should not be considered forests. Environment activists had filed a petition with the Delhi government warning that since “forest and environment permissions for real estate projects lie with the state governments, environmentally-sensitive areas run the risk of being destroyed by unscrupulous governments — as witnessed in a spate of projects in the Yamuna flood plain in Delhi in the past and the Faridabad Aravalis in Haryana”.