MCG chief beats retreat on Biodiversity Park

GURGAON: After days of protest by environment activists over MCG’s various proposals to develop Biodiversity Park, both sides held a marathon meeting on Friday in which the municipal corporation virtually had to roll back all its schemes.

From the beginning, activists opposed MCG commissioner Praveen Kumar’s pet projects of making a herbal park and an ayurvedic garden inside the 600-acre protected ecological zone. And after a four-hour-long debate, MCG commissioner not only agreed to shelve these projects but also to do away with the concrete bird cage, which was being built, altogether.

When asked, Kumar termed the meeting as “fruitful” and said the idea to develop ‘Delhi-Gurgaon biodiversity corridor’ was discussed in detail. “The meeting was good and we discussed various ideas on how to develop this park further and preserve its pristine nature. We also discussed the idea of having a pond inside the park. There are some people who are living inside the park. They have ownership over a part of the land and we want to rehabilitate them. We have also decided to hold a meeting every 15 days to discuss the progress of this park.”

Explaining the idea of having a biodiversity corridor, Vijay Dhasmana, who attended the meeting, said, “This park is a contiguous area from biodiversity park all the way to Rajokri and Vasant Kunj on one side and to Mangar Bani and Damdama on the other side. There is a possibility of lot of animal movement through these channels. Both these roads are active throughout the night and have few settlements in between. We are thinking of having a corridor of trees and vegetation which will provide cover to the wildlife so that they can move without fear. It is going to be a safe forest passage and no civil construction will be allowed here.”

“Making a corridor is not easy and it requires help from biologists. One such example is Kaziranga where they are restricting the flow of traffic by sending them as escorted convoy. No final decision has been taken so far about the corridor where animal movement has been seen and carcass of wild animal spotted quite a few times,” he added.