Amid row, Centre says ‘only 0.19% Aravalli can be mined’

THe Centre’s young definition of the Aravalli hills testament protect o'er 90% of the geologic shaping, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav said on Sunday, rejecting claims that the move will open the fragile ecosystem to large-scale mining.A central government panel defined landforms rising at least 100 metres above the local relief as Aravalli hills, a definition the Supreme Court accepted during a November 20 hearing. “Local relief” means the elevation difference between the hill and its surrounding base area.“After this definition was adopted, more than 90% of the area came under the protected zone. According to my statement, the total area of the Aravalli range is 147,000 sq km.Currently, in the 39 districts I have information for, mining is only possible in 217 sq km. And even in that, mining cannot be done indiscriminately – there are Supreme Court guidelines,” Yadav said at the Sundarban Tiger Reserve in West Bengal amid a spiralling row over the issue.Later, Yadav, in a post on X, clarified that “only 0.19% of the area” was eligible for mining.Yadav also said that the Aravalli range has been defined as two or more hills within 500 metres of each other. He also said that the height of a hill will be measured from its base, not the surface. “The mountain’s base structure extends 20m underground and the protection extends till 100m,” he said.The Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) later issued a factsheet detailing the definition, its objective, and the methodology the Centre used to arrive at the framework. It also stressed that mining in the range is controlled by Supreme Court orders. It said the court-approved framework places a freeze on new mining leases until a comprehensive management plan is finalised.“The committee’s findings, later upheld by the Supreme Court, provide a clear scientific basis for identifying the Aravalli hills and ranges. These findings, combined with strict mining regulations and monitoring, ensure that the ecology of the Aravallis remains safeguarded and free from imminent threat,” said the document.No new mining leases will be allowed in areas mapped as Aravalli hills and ranges under the prescribed definition, according to the factsheet. However, a narrowly tailored exception applies to atomic minerals, critical and strategic minerals, and minerals in Schedule VII of the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act, given national security and economic imperatives, it said.The Centre’s definition has cast a fresh spotlight on mining in the Aravallis, one of the oldest ranges in the world. Scrutiny of mining in the formation has assumed political significance, with criticism from opposition parties, ecologists and activists, who argue that the notification opens vast swathes of the range to exploitation.The two-billion-year-old Aravallis, the country’s oldest fold-mountain range, cover a 700km stretch from the eastern edge of Gujarat to Delhi, passing through Haryana and Rajasthan. The mountains are critical to the region: they act as a natural boundary to the Thar desert, essentially a wall that keeps Delhi from desertification, serve as a natural water recharge facility and provide green cover in an otherwise arid region.The hills are also home to a remarkably diverse ecosystem, with a wide range of native vegetation, birds, insects, reptiles and mammals.Activists called the ministry’s clarification inaccurate, saying it “hid more than it revealed”.“It [the note] is silent on the FSI [Forest Survey of India] data that there are 107,000 hills shorter than 20m and about 11,000 hills between 20m and 100m tall,” said Chetan Agarwal, a forest analyst based in Gurugram.“This adds up to 118,000 hills below 100m height and only 1,048 above that threshold,” he said.“It is an incredible claim, that a definition that excludes 118,000 hills and only accepts 1,048 hills is a robust scientific definition.”He also pushed back against the ministry’s reliance on a 2006 Rajasthan definition of the Aravallis that said any landform rising 100 metres or more above the local relief is classified as a hill.“The ministry is silent on the fact that the Supreme Court did not accept the 100m definition of Rajasthan and instead had directed FSI to conduct a survey and delineate the entire Aravallis in Rajasthan, including the parts below 100m,” said Agarwal.Political parties criticised the Centre’s definition.Former Rajasthan chief minister and senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot accused the BJP of attempting to “jeopardise the future of Rajasthan” by” diluting” protections for the Aravalli range, which he described as the state’s ecological lifeline.The Congress launched protests in Jaipur against the definition.Earlier this week, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi launched a sharp attack on the Centre over the change in definition, calling it a “death warrant” for the hills.Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said the Aravalli mountains must be protected to stop Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) from becoming the “world’s pollution capital”.“If the Aravallis survive, the NCR will survive. The Aravallis are essential for protecting the environment and restoring ecological balance,” he said. “It can help revive vanishing wetlands, bring back disappearing birds and even make Delhi’s lost stars visible again.”