For NCR's last sacred grove, a tax crackdown may turn nature's ally

The first boards appeared last week; then more did. All say the same thing: "This property, 430 acres of land at village Mangar has been attached by Benami Prohibition Unit, Chandigarh of Income Tax Department."

- Jayashree Nandi

MANGAR, FARIDABAD: The first boards appeared last week; then more did. All say the same thing: "This property, 430 acres of land at village Mangar has been attached by Benami Prohibition Unit, Chandigarh of Income Tax Department."

The boards have given environmentalists hope that at least 430 acres of what once used to be village commons will be recognised as "deemed forest" and preserved for posterity.

After all, this is no ordinary land.

Mangar, spread over 4,262 acres (of which 3,810 acres is hill area), is among the most biodiversity rich areas of the Aravallis in the National Capital Region (NCR). Within Mangar village, Mangar Bani (677.12 acres) is NCR's most sacred grove, and possibly the only patch of primary forest in the region. It is also home to around 240 species of birds and 15 species of mammals, including leopards and hyenas. Experts believe the Aravallis' integrity is intrinsic to the well-being of around 64 million people who live in NCR.

Though Mangar meets all criteria for a forest, it has still not been classified as such by the Haryana government. The Supreme Court's December 12, 1996 verdict in TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs. Union of India & Others case directed that "forests" would not only include those understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in government records irrespective of the ownership. HT reported on October 3, 2023 that the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 will benefit real estate companies that own land in what was to be declared "deemed forest" in Haryana's Aravallis. One of the contentious provisions of the new law is that it exempts unrecorded deemed forests from the modified law on forest conservation and hence leaves areas such as Mangar Bani vulnerable.