Biodiversity Park and Lake to be Built in Gurugram

• 09 Dec 2022

Why In News?

On December 8, 2022, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal and Union Minister of State Rao Inderjit Singh inaugurated a biodiversity park on about 420 acres in three villages of Gurugram district namely Damdama, Khedla and Abhaypur and re-established Damdama Lake on about 80 acres. A major construction project was started.

Key Points

• The project will be jointly developed by Gurujal, Haryana CSR Trust and EY Foundation.
• A tripartite agreement was signed with EY Foundation for this project by Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav, who is also the Chairman of Gurujal and Joint Secretary of Haryana State CSR Trust, in the presence of the Chief Minister and Union Minister of State. Bala Chandra Raja Raman, President of the organization signed the agreement on behalf of EY Foundation.
• On this occasion, in the program organized in village Damdama, apart from the project of reconstruction of Biodiversity Park and Damdama Lake, an exhibition was also organized on the activities being carried out for water conservation of Gurujal.
• The Chief Minister informed that this company is voluntarily spending Rs 70 crore on this project. Haryana CSR Trust has been formed to encourage companies to spend their CSR funds in the right way in social works. In the last one year, companies have spent Rs 542 crore for CSR in the state through this trust.
• The Chief Minister said that in the coming time, at least one thousand crore rupees should be spent in social works in the state through CSR. This money will be spent on environment, water conservation, health and education.
• He informed that apart from the development of biodiversity parks and lakes, work is also proposed to build jungle safari on about 10 thousand acres in the Aravalli hills in Gurugram and Nuh districts. This will also boost tourism and provide employment opportunities to the people.
• Bala Chandra Raja Raman, President of EY Foundation, said that his company does not come under the purview of CSR, yet is voluntarily spending on this project. Cooperation of institutions like TERI, Sidar, IIT, Columbia University etc. will be taken in developing this project.
• This project will be developed in four phases. In the first phase, along with studying the plants and soil of the area, construction of nursery and cleaning of the lake will be done. In the second phase, water shed management and tree plantation will be started, in the third phase the lake will be developed and in the fourth phase plantation will be done.
• Renovation of Damdama Lake will be completed in four years and the work of developing Biodiversity Park will be completed in 10 years.