Green group challenges Punjab’s new policy, cites threat to Shivalik-Kandi belt

The Punjab government’s newly notified ‘Policy for approval/regularisation of low-impact green habitats (LIGH), 2025’ has been challenged before the Punjab and Haryana high court, contending that it opens the door to construction and regularisation of illegal structures in the ecologically fragile Shivalik-Kandi belt.

The writ petition was filed by the Public Action Committee (PAC) – a group comprising environmental experts, residents and social stakeholders – sought the quashing of the department of housing and urban development’s November 20 notification.

Taking up the matter, the bench headed by chief justice Sheel Nagu, fixed the matter for further hearing in January on the issue of maintainability.

While a similar petition is pending before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), senior advocate RS Bains contended on the petitioners’ behalf that the tribunal did not have the power to interfere in the legality and validity of the notification.

The petition asserted that the impugned policy applied exclusively to districts in the Shivalik-Kandi region — described as Punjab’s last contiguous forest-bearing landscape and its primary ecological shield.

According to the petitioners, although the policy was styled as a general regulatory framework, its consequences were far-reaching and continuing. The forests and forest-influenced tracts of the Shivalik-Kandi belt regulated groundwater recharge, stabilised fragile hill slopes, moderate surface runoff and sustained air quality across downstream habitations and urban centres. Any fragmentation or reduction of this forest cover, the petition argued, would inevitably heighten risks of erosion, flooding, water stress and environmental degradation across Punjab. The NGT had on Thursday had granted an interim stay on the implementation of the Punjab government’s policy to allow approval and regularisation of low-impact green habitats in the lower Shivalik hills, abutting forest areas.