Heavy machinery levels an undulating ridge into flat farmland at Tijara in Rajasthan’s Alwar district. Photo: Vikas Choudhary/CSE
Environment

Death of a range

India’s oldest hills are being destroyed before our very eyes; and nobody is battling an eyelid

Vikas Choudhary

The Aravallis are India’s oldest mountains. But it has just taken the last 40 years to dismantle the 2.5-billion-year-old range.

Here, heavy machinery tears into the foothills of the Aravallis at Tijara in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, reshaping a once undulating ridge into flat farmland.

The Aravallis are India’s oldest mountains. They are 2.5 billion years old.

Experts warn such hill cutting drives down groundwater, erodes soil buffers and accelerates desertification in this ecologically fragile region.