Gurugram, Aug 19 (IANS): In a major development against illegal structures built on forest land, the Gurugram forest department has identified 500 such structures and served notices to 100 construction owners.

This comes after the Gurugram forest department started a survey with drones to identify the illegal structures on the Aravalli forest land.

The move comes weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the removal of all illegal structures from forest lands in the Aravalli region.

The Sohna area in Gurugram district has many colonies in the forest areas attached to the foothills of the Aravalli.

The are more than a thousand houses and shops that have been built, where people have been living for more than five decades.

Following the Supreme Court order to remove all the constructions from the Aravalli forest area, a team comprising officials from the Sohna Municipal Council, forest department and the district administration is engaged in conducting the survey.

In six days, more than 500 buildings have been identified as illegal structures, and notices have been served to about 100 of them.

The forest department has surveyed the houses built at many places including ITI Colony, Pahar Colony, Pir Colony, Gujar Ghati, Devilal Road and Thakurwada.

The department is also identifying these structures based on land records and maps. However, most of the houses in these colonies were built in the declared forest area in the year 2004.

"People have illegally occupied several acres of land in Sohna's Aravalli area, which is being surveyed. Possession of illegal land will be removed," said a forest official requesting anonymity.

According to officials, the department has surveyed more than 1,700 hectares of land to ascertain how many illegal constructions are there in the Aravalli region.

The survey is to be conducted on a total of 6,800 hectares of land in the Gurugram Aravalli range.

After the survey and based on the report, a blueprint for action against illegal constructions will be prepared.