India, Dec. 16 -- A recent notification issued by the Haryana government to undertake "kilabandi", or the demarcation of land into smaller plots, in Kot village in Faridabad's Aravalli stretch has reignited fears among villagers and environmental experts that tracts of village common land in the ecologically fragile hills could eventually be transferred to private hands. Officials, however, have stressed that the exercise is intended only to establish a uniform measurement system and does not involve consolidation of land.

Kot, surrounded by rocky hills and dry decidous and thorny scrub forests, lies in one of the last relatively intact stretches of the Aravallis in the National Capital Region.

According to an October 30 notification is...