The Aravalli Issue: India’s Oldest Mountains at the Crossroads of Law, Ecology, and Development

Across north-western India stretches a low, weathered chain of hills that rarely commands public attention, yet silently sustains the lives of millions. The Aravalli Range, among the oldest mountain systems on Earth, lacks dramatic peaks or snow-capped summits. Its slopes are gentle, its ridges fragmented, and its presence often underestimated. But beneath this modest appearance lies one of India’s most critical ecological foundations. Today, the Aravallis stand at a decisive moment, threatened by decades of mining, deforestation, urban expansion, and regulatory neglect.

The unfolding crisis, commonly referred to as the “Aravalli Issue,” is not marked by sudden catastrophe but by slow ecological unravelling, manifesting as groundwater collapse, worsening air pollution, rising temperatures, and the steady advance of desertification. Understanding this issue is essential not only for environmental awareness but for grasping the long-term sustainability of North India itself.

An Ancient Geological System

The Aravalli Range originated nearly 1.5 to 2 billion years ago during the Proterozoic Era, making it one of the world’s oldest surviving mountain systems. Formed by ancient tectonic activity and shaped by prolonged erosion, the range today appears as low hills, ridges, plateaus, and rocky outcrops rather than sharp peaks. It stretches over 650–700 kilometres, beginning in Gujarat, passing through Rajasthan, and extending into Haryana and Delhi.

The highest point, Guru Shikhar in Mount Abu, rises to about 1,722 metres, while much of the range exists at far lower elevations. This extreme antiquity explains why the Aravallis are often mischaracterised as insignificant or “wasteland.” In reality, their geological age makes them ecologically irreplaceable. Their rocks, granite, marble, schist, phyllite, are rich in minerals such as limestone, copper, zinc, lead, and tungsten, a factor that has historically drawn intense mining pressure and become one of the gravest threats to their survival.

Why the Aravallis Matter

The true importance of the Aravallis lies not in their height but in their function. For millennia, the range has acted as a natural barrier preventing the eastward expansion of the Thar Desert into the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains. By slowing desert winds, stabilising soil, and supporting vegetation, the Aravallis have restrained aridity from spreading into Haryana, Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh, and beyond.

This barrier is now weakening. Scientific studies and satellite data reveal multiple gaps or “breaches” in the Aravalli chain, especially across Rajasthan and southern Haryana. As forests are cleared and hills flattened, these gaps widen, allowing desert dust and hot winds to travel eastward. The result is rising temperatures, dust storms, declining agricultural productivity, and worsening air quality across the National Capital Region.

Equally crucial is the role of the Aravallis in groundwater recharge. The range forms a natural water divide between the Indus basin to the west and the Ganga basin to the east. Rainwater that falls on its fractured rocks slowly percolates underground, replenishing aquifers that sustain agriculture, villages, and expanding cities. Rivers such as the Luni, Banas, Chambal, Sabarmati, and Sahibi originate from or are sustained by the Aravalli system.

When hills are mined or surfaces concreted, this recharge process collapses. Rainwater turns into rapid runoff, causing short-term flooding and long-term groundwater depletion. In parts of Haryana and Delhi, water tables have fallen to alarming depths, sometimes over a thousand feet, threatening drinking water security.

The Aravallis also support rich biodiversity. Leopards, hyenas, jackals, foxes, deer, langurs, jungle cats, and hundreds of bird species inhabit these forests and scrublands. These hills form vital wildlife corridors connecting protected areas across states. Fragmentation of this landscape is eroding ecological connectivity and increasing human–wildlife conflict.

What Is the Aravalli Issue?

The Aravalli Issue is the cumulative result of decades of environmental neglect driven by conflicting development priorities and weak governance. Extensive mining for marble, limestone, sandstone, and quartz has flattened hills and scarred one of the world’s oldest mountain systems. At the same time, rapid urban expansion, especially around Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, and Jaipur, has pushed highways, farmhouses, resorts, and real-estate projects deep into ecologically sensitive Aravalli landscapes.

One of the most damaging practices has been the administrative misclassification of Aravalli land as “wasteland” or “non-forest.” This legal fiction has enabled mining and construction to proceed while ignoring ecological reality. Satellite data indicate that nearly 80% of the Aravalli range was vegetated at the beginning of the twentieth century, but forest cover declined sharply by the century’s end, most severely in NCR districts.

In areas such as Delhi, Gurugram, and Faridabad, forests have been replaced not by agriculture but by concrete and asphalt, increasing vulnerability to extreme heat, flooding, air pollution, and groundwater depletion.

Judicial Interventions and the Struggle for Protection

The large-scale destruction of the Aravalli range has repeatedly drawn the attention of India’s judiciary over the past three decades. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued restrictions on mining in parts of the Aravallis in response to growing ecological damage. Judicial concern intensified in 2002, when the Supreme Court imposed mining restrictions in areas of Haryana and Rajasthan after recognising that unregulated extraction was irreversibly damaging forests, groundwater systems, and hill formations.

In 2009, the Supreme Court went further, imposing a blanket ban on mining in Faridabad, Gurugram, and Mewat districts. In subsequent judgments, including significant interventions in 2018 and later years, the Court strongly criticised state authorities for failing to enforce its orders. It reiterated that environmental protection cannot be sacrificed for short-term economic gain and emphasised that forests and ecologically sensitive areas must be protected regardless of how they are classified in revenue or land records.

Despite these clear judicial directions, enforcement has remained weak and uneven. Illegal and unregulated mining continued, aided by the absence of a consistent legal definition of what constitutes Aravalli land. Different states relied on varying criteria, such as slope, vegetation cover, buffer zones, hill height, or revenue records, creating regulatory loopholes that allowed destruction to persist.

To resolve this ambiguity, the Supreme Court constituted a multi-agency expert committee comprising the Ministry of Environment, Forest Survey of India, Geological Survey of India, State Forest Departments, and the Central Empowered Committee (CEC). In 2025, the Court accepted the committee’s recommendation for a uniform definition of the Aravalli range, classifying all hill systems rising above 100 metres as part of the Aravallis. Alongside this clarification, the Court paused the grant of all fresh mining leases across Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.

While the Court’s intent was to bring administrative clarity and strengthen enforcement, environmental groups and conservationists expressed serious concerns. They warned that a narrowly height-based definition could exclude vast low-lying ridges, foothills, and degraded hill systems that are ecologically critical for wildlife corridors, groundwater recharge, and climate regulation. This unresolved tension, between legal simplicity and ecological continuity, now lies at the heart of the ongoing Aravalli protection debate.

Role of Governments and Institutions

The protection of the Aravallis falls under both central and state jurisdiction. While the central government frames environmental laws, state governments control land use, mining leases and urban planning. In practice, this division has often resulted in weak accountability.

State governments, eager to attract investment and expand urban infrastructure, have frequently relaxed safeguards or delayed the identification of forest areas despite repeated court orders. Regulatory institutions have struggled with limited resources and political pressure, allowing illegal mining and encroachment to persist.

The failure to clearly identify and legally notify forest areas in regions like Haryana has been a critical weakness. This administrative delay has created space for exploitation under the guise of development.

The Central Empowered Committee and a Science-Based Approach

Recognising the limits of piecemeal regulation, the CEC proposed a landscape-level, science-based strategy. It recommended comprehensive scientific mapping of the entire Aravalli system, macro-level environmental impact assessments to capture cumulative damage, and absolute prohibition of mining in ecologically sensitive zones such as wildlife corridors, aquifer recharge areas, water bodies, and protected habitats.

Until these assessments are completed, no new mining leases or renewals are to be allowed. Stone-crushing units, major contributors to air pollution in NCR, are to be strictly regulated. These recommendations, accepted by the Supreme Court in November 2025, mark a shift from fragmented governance to ecosystem-based management.

Sustainable Mining and the Green Wall Initiative

The Court deliberately avoided imposing a total mining ban. Past experience showed that blanket prohibitions often fuel illegal mining mafias and unregulated extraction. Instead, it adopted a calibrated approach, allowing existing legal mining under strict oversight while pausing fresh approvals.

Complementing judicial action, the central government launched the Aravalli Green Wall Project in June 2025. Covering a five-kilometre buffer across 29 districts in four states, the initiative aims to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, strengthen groundwater recharge, and curb desertification, aligning with India’s land degradation neutrality goals.

What Is at Stake

The Aravalli Issue is ultimately a test of India’s development model. These hills are not obstacles to progress; they are prerequisites for long-term stability. If degradation continues, desertification will advance eastward, groundwater reserves will collapse, air pollution will worsen, and cities will face extreme heat and water stress. Wildlife habitats will shrink further, and rural communities will lose their livelihoods.

Once destroyed, such systems cannot be rebuilt. Roads and buildings can be replaced; ancient ecological shields cannot.

Impact on Local Communities and Livelihoods

The degradation of the Aravallis has deeply affected local communities who depend on the hills for water, grazing land and forest produce. Traditional water systems such as johads, baoris and stepwells, once sustained by natural recharge, are drying up. As water becomes scarce, agriculture becomes less viable, forcing villagers to migrate in search of livelihoods.

These communities bear the cost of environmental damage they did not cause. The loss of forests also erodes cultural practices and local knowledge systems that have evolved around sustainable use of hill resources over centuries.

Why the Aravalli Issue Is a Serious Concern Today

Recent policy and legal developments have revived fears that large parts of the Aravallis may lose formal recognition due to narrow, height-based definitions. This is especially dangerous because the Aravallis are ancient and naturally low-lying. Excluding them from protection ignores their ecological function and accelerates their destruction.

Once a hill is mined or built over, it cannot be restored. Even small ridges play a crucial role in water flow, soil stability and climate regulation. Their loss weakens the entire system.

Global Relevance and Climate Change Context

The Aravalli Issue fits squarely within the global challenge of climate change and sustainability. Protecting forests, hills and groundwater recharge zones is essential for climate resilience. The Aravallis act as natural buffers against heatwaves, droughts and desertification, threats that climate change is intensifying.

Destroying such systems undermines India’s commitments to biodiversity conservation, climate mitigation and sustainable development. In contrast, conserving and restoring the Aravallis would strengthen regional resilience and contribute to global environmental goals.

Consequences of Failing to Protect the Aravallis

If current trends continue, desertification will advance eastward, groundwater reserves will collapse, and cities will face extreme heat and water stress. Air pollution will worsen as green cover declines. Wildlife habitats will shrink further, increasing ecological imbalance and human-animal conflict.

Most critically, future generations will lose a natural defence system that has protected the region for millions of years. Unlike roads or buildings, such systems cannot be rebuilt once destroyed.

                    The Aravalli Issue represents a fundamental test of India’s approach to development and environmental stewardship. These ancient hills may appear modest, but their contribution to water security, climate regulation and ecological balance is immense. Protecting them is not an obstacle to progress but a prerequisite for long-term stability and well-being.

What is at stake is not merely a mountain range, but the environmental foundation of north-western India. The choices made today will determine whether the Aravallis continue to quietly sustain life or stand as a warning of irreversible ecological loss.