Save India’s Aravalli range: Let’s hope the precautionary principle prevails at the Supreme Court

Bad air around the National Capital Region (NCR), flanked by these hills to its southwest, adds to what’s at stake.

Ideally, the definition adopted on 20 November by the SC at the urging of the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) should be abandoned in favour of one laid down in 2010 by the Forest Survey of India (FSI).

This would help preserve the Aravalli hills, which are among the planet’s oldest fold-mountain formations, having got folded up by the force of one tectonic plate pressing against another.

The 2010 FSI report, which was commissioned by the SC and authored by a panel of experts, defined the Aravalli range to include elevations rising at a slope of three degrees or more, with an area mapped by a distance of 100 metres from the base of such a slope marked as a buffer zone, plus the valleys, tabletops and depressions around such hills.

A 2025 report, however, seeks to make an elevation of at least 100 metres from the local relief a criterion for any hill to be counted as part of this range.

The new report was prepared by a committee that had FSI members but was spearheaded by the MoEFCC, whose record on environmental clearances has been criticized for such alleged laxity that it risks facts on the ground turning into fait accompli.

Media reports have claimed that FSI’s internal assessments suggest a 100m cutoff would cover only 1,048 of more than 12,000 hillocks in Rajasthan—less than a tenth. The FSI, however, has denied any such study having reached that conclusion.

Indisputably, though, major hilly parts of Sawai Madhopur and Chittorgarh would cease to qualify as Aravalli hills. So the revised definition would clearly shrink the range and expose hilly zones to mining and other activities.

While the SC’s November ruling asked for a Management Plan for Sustainable Mining (MPSM), past experience shows that once an area loses a shield outlined by obvious topography, miners seem to find ways around sustainability norms.

Sure, ecological protection is not our sole priority. Modern life requires the extraction of assorted minerals from the ground, including limestone to make cement, which is plentiful in the Aravallis. New claims have been made of rare earths in these hills that are critical for India’s strategic purposes.

If this is so, we need careful prospecting for minerals before they are opened to restricted mining in small but well-marked stretches. But if all sub-100m hills are laid bare to critical-mineral hunters, the range could get battered. This risk means that the precautionary principle needs to be exercised.

This legal tenet holds that high precaution must be taken over decisions with the potential to create irreversibly major harm. The Aravalli range is the NCR’s barrier from the Thar desert. In the summer, it saves the urban sprawl around India’s capital from hot desert winds laden with dust.

In the monsoon, the range aids rainfall, with its slopes and valleys helping recharge the region’s groundwater and retain its biodiversity. Even smaller hills play a role in the ability of this range to act as a natural wind-shield for an area that’s home to millions.

We should not sell the future short for petty gains in the present.