NEEM KA THANA: Dizzyingly deep pits from large-scale mining scar India’s ancient Aravalli Mountains, threatening the future of a forested buffer zone that New Delhi relies on to protect itself from scorching desert winds.
Residents have long protested that the hills of this 700-kilometre area are being destroyed by uncontrolled mining, to feed an insatiable hunger for concrete in some of the world’s fastest-growing cities.
Late last year, India’s highest court ordered a ban on new mining permits in the region, but some fear the move may come too late.
The loss of the hills increases the city’s already dangerously hot temperatures, increasing the risk of desertification and worsening health problems, experts warn.
For those living in the Aravallis, which stretch from western Gujarat state through Rajasthan to the heart of New Delhi, the consequences are already existential.
“Mining has destroyed our region,” said Salle Kumar, a 34-year-old farmer who lives in a village sandwiched between two huge mines in Rajasthan. “Our rivers are dead, our farms barren.”
“Shakes violently”
Lung diseases are also common, residents say.
“There is a blanket of dust all day because of all the mining and stone crushing activities,” said Subhash Saini, whose brother died of what private doctors said was silicosis, a disease caused by inhaling dust.
A government hospital insisted it was tuberculosis, even though silicosis can also make people more vulnerable to tuberculosis.
Most of the Aravallis are in Rajasthan and a quarter of the state’s hills have been exploited, a committee constituted by the Supreme Court in 2018 found.
The mines extract gneiss and granite to build the gigantic pits that now surround the village of Chatru Ki Dhani, home to fewer than 200 people.
When AFP visited, explosions rang out repeatedly in the searing hot air, as the blasts split stone for mining.
At villager Om Prakash Verma’s house, the constant activity has left cracks in the walls. Other houses simply collapsed, residents said.
“The earth shakes violently every time there is an explosion, all day and night,” said Verma, who described quarry workers beating her aunt as she participated in anti-mining protests.
“Alarmist claims”
India’s environment ministry says only 0.19 percent, or 277 square kilometers (106 square miles) of the Aravalli landscape, is open for mining.
“Contrary to alarmist claims, there is no imminent threat to the ecology of the Aravallis,” he said in a December statement.
But independent audits suggest a much broader mining footprint.
A 2020 report from India’s Comptroller and Auditor General, using satellite imagery and ground verification, found that about 34% of licensed mines surveyed were expanding beyond their legal limits.
A 2025 judicial committee discovered 2,339 square kilometers of mines in the Aravallis part of Rajasthan alone.
The scale of illegal activity means the Supreme Court’s December ruling banning new mining permits is too little and too late, activists say.
“Most of the existing mining leases are flawed and granted without proper verification,” said Kailash Meena, a veteran of the anti-mining campaign.
“On top of this, there is widespread illegal mining, as audit after audit has confirmed.”
“Physical barrier”
The degradation of the Aravallis will affect the entire northern India, experts say.
The range provides a “physical barrier against dust storms and heat waves” coming from the western Thar Desert, said environmentalist CR Babu.
The desert is already advancing east, threatening the floodplains of the Ganges, he warned.
“If we do not protect the Aravalli, the northern Ganga plains, which are the breadbasket of the rest of the country, would become a desert,” he said.
Delhi, where temperatures in May reached 45C for several consecutive days, is particularly at risk of becoming “a dust bowl with extreme heat load”, he said.
Activists like Meena, whose brother died of lung disease two decades ago, say they have repeatedly warned of these consequences.
“For years we have been calling for a crackdown on the mining sector,” he said. “But now that the townspeople realize that their cities are getting hotter and hotter, everyone now wants to save the Aravallis.”
Parts of the hills, which rise to 1,722 meters (5,813 feet), are still home to dwindling populations of leopards, sloth bears, hyenas and antelopes.
They offer a glimpse of what has been lost, with resilient shrubs painting the hills dark green.
In the village of Bhagwanpura, Rajasthan, Nikita Meena, 18, and other residents have been camping on a hilltop since January to prevent miners from accessing one of the last untouched areas.
“Whatever happens, we won’t let minors come here,” she said. “All mining brings is destruction.”
