Withering heights: Supreme Court verdict impacts the future of Aravallis

This much is clear from an internal assessment of the Forest Survey of India, which is reported to have stated that more than 90 per cent of the Aravallis falls below 100 metres

High levels of dust pollution and a rapidly depleting water table are two of the principal ecological threats facing Delhi and the sprawling National Capital Region (NCR). The Supreme Court’s recent verdict could indirectly accelerate these hazards and lead to ecological disaster. It has accepted a definition submitted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) of the Aravalli hills and ranges and it could extend mining and construction activities in larger parts of one of the world’s oldest mountain ranges. This could hasten the degradation and desertification of large parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi. The ministry’s criterion, accepted by the Supreme Court, defines the Aravallis as landforms 100 metres or higher above the local relief. The implication is that mining and construction will be permitted in areas below this height. The problem with this definition is that it is disingenuously illusory because the bulk of this mountain range lies below the 100-metre cutoff.

 

This much is clear from an internal assessment of another government institution, the Forest Survey of India, which is reported to have stated that more than 90 per cent of the Aravallis falls below 100 metres. In the definition submitted to the court, the ministry appears to have ignored internal recommendations of a technical committee formed last year. It offered benchmarks in terms of height and the angle of slope, which would have excluded many more hills from the ambit of the miner and developer’s bulldozers. The Supreme Court’s order does not offer a carte blanche for mining and other development. It has stipulated that no new leases would be permitted until the government submits a sustainable mining plan.

 

This restriction is unlikely to allay the fears of environmentalists because this mountain range is already in the ecological red zone owing to decades of illegal mining and construction. The fact is that even hills with elevations of up to 30 metres can protect the NCR from dust pollution. But in 2018, a Supreme Court-appointed committee had found that 31 of the 128 Aravalli hilltops in Rajasthan had disappeared altogether because of illegal quarrying, opening large gaps that funnel big amounts of dust from the Thar desert towards the NCR. In August last year, a study of land-use dynamics in the Aravallis revealed that between 1975 and 2019 nearly 8 per cent of the range had disappeared, human settlements had increased from 4.5 per cent to 13.3 per cent, and forest cover had dropped  32 per cent with a significant rise in cultivated land.

 

The wanton destruction of such priceless ecological wealth has played its role in higher dust pollution and erratic weather, which has marked the region in the past few decades. Taken together with the Supreme Court’s reversal earlier this month of its own ruling banning retrospective environmental clearances for projects nearing completion, the steady weakening of environmental safeguards are concerning at a time when the impact of climate change is becoming more acute. As with its verdict on the Aravalli hills, the apex court had argued that the restriction on economic activities would not be in the public interest. But the destruction of natural resources that play a key role in leavening ecological imbalances cannot be in the larger public interest, either, especially when the poor bear the brunt of ecological damage. At the very least, a sensible reconsideration of this definition is called for.