new delhithe notification which categorised these villages as forests ensured protection from land use change under sections 4 and 5 of the punjab land preservation act plpa punjab however renotified the forest cover on the same day of the notification expiry putting 21944 acres under the protective blanket of the plpa haryana on the other hand has failed to renotify 20851 acres out of 25037 acres forest cover which expired in the last 10 years this has left the aravalis in haryana vulnerable to land use change for real estate and other projects instead of renotifying the forest areas the haryana government has started identifying forest and nonforest areas in land already notified under sections 4 and 5 of the plpaan independent study based on data available on the haryana forest department website revealed that the plpa protection notification has already lapsed in 36 out of 38 villages in gurgaon 10 out of 17 villages in faridabad 47 out of 57 villages in mewat all 12 villages in mahendragarh all 9 in rewari and 1 in palwal as opposed to punjab in south haryana even complete hill areas havent been notified as forests in mangar village there are 3810 acres of hill area and only about 1132 acres are notified haryana needs to renotify all the areas where notification has lapsed or is about to lapse and to include the remaining aravali areas in the notification said environmentalist chetan agarwal who conducted the studyshivaliks and aravalis in both punjab and haryana have similar challenges where large swathes of forest land has already been illegally privatized but punjabs move to renotify these lands gives them protection from major landuse change punjabs move to renotify its forests and haryanas status quo on renotification will reflect in fsis 2019 report agarwal addedpunjab has managed to add about 66 sqkm of forests compared to the fsi report 2015 which is mainly attributed to an increase in tree cover outside of recorded forests as per fsi but haryana didnt even manage that and recorded an increase of only 8 sqkm in forest cover haryana has however lost 1 sqkm in the shivaliks in panchkula it has also lost forest cover in central haryana the policies of both states in securing and increasing forest cover will be crucial in tackling air pollution in ncr and conserving groundwater resources here