Sukhdev Singh
sukhdev.eng@gndu.ac.in
The fast depleting groundwater in Punjab and Haryana and eroding topography, ecology and environment in Rajsthan, Haryana and Delhi NCR, caused not by nature and time but by human activity are the matters of great concern. The Aravali hills, formed billions of years ago from ancient tectonic plate collisions during the Precambrian/ Proterozoic era, once a range of very high fold mountains, worn down by millions of years of weathering and erosion, have become a series of detached high and low hills, ridges, and rocky outcrops. The hills in the range stand between 300 and 900 metres, but the highest peak of Guru Shikhar on Mount Abu plateau, Rajasthan, rising to elevation of 1,722 meters (5,650 feet) above sea level, yet there are many hills of lesser height too. The Aravali has drawn much attention from the environment experts, the civil society and media for a Supreme Court verdict accepting the 100 metre condition, proposed by the MOEFCC committee, for a hill to qualify as part of Aravalli leading to protest marches on roads and statements in the media.
On the Supreme Court direction in 2024 a technical committee under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, was formed to create a uniform definition, incorporating Rajasthan’s existing definition based on local relief rather than based on sea-relief. Relying much on the Rajsthan’s definition, the committee prepared criteria stating that a hill should be elevated to the height of 100 metres from the level around it or it should fall within 500 metres between the two qualifying hills in the Aravalli range. The Supreme Court accepted the definition on November 20,2025 triggering wide spread opposition, protests and criticism.
The government defended the definition highlighting it only as a ‘technical’ clarification and its existence in Rajsthan since 2006 counting its benefit of uniformly protecting Aravalli whereas these are also the points of focus for criticism. On December 29,2025 the Supreme Court stayed its order of November 20, 2025, citing public resentment.
The technical committee comprising the MOEFCC officials, State Forest Department officials, and Forest Survey of India (FSI) experts, had suggested local-area-level rather than sea-level as the baseline for measuring the 100 metre height for a land rise to qualify as an Aravali hill whereas the local area in the said region itself is more than 100 metre higher than the sea level, a universal standard to measure the height of a hill. If the local relief is the criterion, a hill of 199 height from the sea level will also not qualify as Aravali causing to exclude 90% of the hills in Rajsthan. According to FSI, only 1048 (8.7%) of 12081 Aravali hills in Rajsthan would meet the standard of 100 metre height from the local relief.
Sea-relief is a universal, standardized reference point whereas local relief is arbitrary, defined by the immediate surrounding terrain. For example, to say that Everest is 8848.86 high, it refers to its elevation from the sea level, not from the local level.
Secondly, Rajsthan has a definition and mining is allowed accordingly whereas Delhi and Haryana don’t have any such definition for Aravali hills and mining is prohibited. The committee has added ‘uniformity’ by defining Aravali in Rajsthan legal code and has transported it to Haryana and all other states sharing Aravali range which creates scope for permitting mining and other activities in Haryana too where it was not possible within the legal framework there.
A question, here, is whether the definition serves to prevent mining and real estate activities or creates the scope for it. The answer is definitely the latter.
The declared aim of the definition is ‘to regulate’ mining, not to prevent mining in the Aravali. The Aravali range spreads through Rajsthan, Haryana, Delhi and Gujrat and It is in Delhi and Haryana where Aravali consists of more isolated lower hills and ridges. That is the main point eyed by the real estate developers seeking to legalize their operations in Gurgaon and Faridabad districts of Haryana touching Delhi where they have been operating by one or the other way causing the prices to rocket high there. A survey conducted in 2023, identified 6793 unauthorized structures in the form of luxury farm houses, resorts, banquet halls, dwelling units, religious structures and educational institutions etc. besides the authorized buildings across 786 acres of land in this region. According to a 2018 report by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) appointed by the Supreme Court, 31 out of 128 Aravalli hills in the Alwar district of Rajasthan had vanished or critically eroded due to illegal mining and relaxed regulatory enforcement during the last 50 years.
Initially there were stray examples of mining and structures for use in the region by individuals or society, but in the recent past the resources in the region have been exploited for the market. It is the market-driven mining, deforestation and real estate development that have threatened the Aravali Hills.
What is only a ‘technical’ clarification to the government, is actually a ‘passage to the miners and real estate developers for intruding without check deep in to the Aravali. Once Aravali defined to exclude some of its parts out of its ambit, the mining and real estate companies will definitely be allowed to take over that region legally; once allowed, they cannot be stopped from entering the heart of Aravalli. That is how market-driven forces work. Market-driven forces guided by ‘profit maximization’ do not account for ‘externalities’ of human, cultural, environmental and natural concerns resulting in pollution, resource depletion, and loss of cultural heritage. Corporations, industry groups and business houses are inherently potent for extensive lobbying and campaign funding to influence legislation, potentially leading to policies that favour their profitability over broader human or environmental concerns.
That is where governments have to intervene and prioritize human welfare, environment and ecological protection rather than letting the market forces decide it all in their favour. Thus before adopting a definition for Aravali hills that may directly or indirectly damage one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world acting as a natural air pollution filter, a regulator of local climate, a barrier against the Thar Desert, and a groundwater recharger, the government and the Supreme Court must examine it from all angles before legalizing it.
The Supreme Court ruling of December 29, 2025 ordering to keep its own 40 day old verdict on hold till further orders is a welcome step. The court has respected the public voices over its own prestige and ego by taking a suo moto notice of the viewpoint of environmentalists and civil society and has ordered to form a new committee for examination of the matter.
The new committee will have to understand whether any definition is required if the aim is to protect the Aravalli range in its entirety. Aiming to protect the Aravalli requires to protect the Aravalli foothills to the extent of at least 500 metres of flatland around it, reserving it for agriculture and grazing only.
# The author is a Professor retired from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
Vice-Chairman, INTACH, New Delhi
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