The latest in the Aravallis issue is that the Supreme Court (SC) is in the process of appointing a 10-member High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC) on March 3, 2026, to have a relook at the definition of the Aravallis. This came after the apex court set aside its own order of November 2025. The court decided to review the matter afresh in December 2025 following agitation by civil society against the November 2025 order accepting the 100-meter identification of the Aravallis to be used uniformly across the hill range for the purpose of mining.
But the HPEC being newly constituted apparently aims to define the Aravallis precisely to mine them.
In another curious development, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) has proposed names consented to by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate (MoEF&CC) and accepted by the SC in March 2026. It is the same MoEF&CC which filed a vitiated Aravalli Expert Committee (AEC) report in October 2025 and is again being given the authority to decide the members of the HPEC. And it is the same CEC that has been given the authority to propose names for the HPEC!
The proposed new HPEC does not have a wildlife expert, a most essential requirement or a GIS expert. This HPEC is headed by a Chair responsible for the highly controversial Green Credit program, which is under litigation in the form of a contempt of a Supreme Court order itself. The members of the HPEC are mostly unheard-of experts rather than luminaries in relevant fields including hydrology, microecology and geo-technical experts. The recent SC orders also do not stipulate that identification, demarcation and protection of forests according to the Godavarman order, the Ashok Sharma order of February 19, 2024, and March 4, 2025, as well as the Lafarge order should first be implemented before any next steps of defining the Aravalli hills by the HPEC are taken. The Terms of Reference (ToR) also does not stipulate first setting parameters through scientific studies for bio-diversity surveys, wildlife corridors, microflora and fauna, aquifers, ground water recharging terrains, soil, slope and ecosystem stability, GIS mapping, etc and reclamation of barren mined lands.
It appears that the concerned agencies assigned to define the Aravallis are in fact putting in place a mechanism to conceive a definition suitable for mining.
The AEC, set up in May 2024, was chaired by the MoEF&CC Secretary — the chairperson and members being Secretaries of the Department of Forests, NCR-Delhi and the states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat, a representative of the Forest Survey of India, Geological Survey of India (GSI) and CEC. Not a single non-government member with domain knowledge was a part of this committee and such a committee was accepted by the SC.
This AEC unanimously constituted a Technical Sub-Committee (TSC) in June 2024, headed by the Director General of FSI (DG FSI) as Chair, with representatives from the Survey of India (SoI) and GSI, for finalszing the methodology to arrive at a uniform definition. The TSC submitted its report to the AEC in October 2024 which recommended that for the purpose of mining, the definition adopted by Rajasthan, i.e. “criteria of elevation of 100 m and above from the local relief/ground level, along with supporting slopes” would be the uniform definition, which was then accepted by all parties of the AEC. The DG FSI thus rejected the 2010 FSI definition and recommended the definition of 100+ meters as the Aravallis for mining.
The AEC has also made some unscientific and strange observations that the Aravallis are not as fragile as the Himalayas and Western Ghats as they have historically coexisted with human settlements, agriculture, and resource-based livelihoods. It can only be the AEC’s incompetence or their desperate need to facilitate mining that ignored the ecological imperatives to protect the Aravallis. Equating large scale mining with “historical coexistence” is incredulous!
The AEC has stressed on the range being a well-known repository of base metals such as lead, zinc, and copper, as well as strategic and critical minerals including gold, tungsten, tin, graphite, molybdenum, nickel, lithium, and rare earth elements supposedly having relevance for energy transition and national security. However, the report hardly mentions biodiversity vigour, ecological security — including its role in human health and support to communities. It only mentions that critical fragile areas will be identified, which will be out of bounds for mining without detailing the methodology for accomplishing it.
The AEC and the SC order also do not mention communities in the Aravalli range which include major tribal groups like the Bhil, Meena, Garasia, and pastoral communities such as the Rabaris, Bharwads, Kalbeliyas and other agrarian societies who are deeply connected to the hills for water, fodder, and cultural identity and have reported their abhorrence to the mining in the Aravallis. There has been no engagement with these communities or how mining will impact them.
The AEC comprised primarily of Secretaries having general acumen in administration but little scientific expertise or domain knowledge. The report of such a pseudo “Expert Committee” should have been a red flag and should have been rejected. The only inference that can be derived from such a disingenuous set up is that the outcome was a stage managed one, to benefit the mining lobby without a care about the ecological security of the country.
Many committees of the Supreme Court such as the CEC are hit by the same lacunae.
The CEC has cried hoarse that the AEC report was not endorsed by them and was the handiwork of a single member in his personal capacity. However, the AEC report states that a mail was received from the CEC representative on October 2, 2025 “reiterating his acceptance of the proposed uniform definition of Aravalli Hills and Ranges.” This is the most incredulous argument being made by the CEC as no member of the government or its committees are authorised to agree to a report in their personal capacity and if they do, they have to contend with the official repercussions. But we don’t see any such repercussions faced by the hapless scapegoated member. If this had been informed to the Court, why did the Court consider the report?
The FSI has given a report in 2010 using the 3-degree slope parameter for defining the Aravalli hills. While this included 62 districts against 37 districts recommended by the AEC of the Aravallis, such a geological parameter still opened some 60 per cent of the Aravalli range to mining while granting protection to only 40 per cent. Taking 3 degrees as the sole parameter left out all ecological parameters such as forests, wildlife sanctuaries, eco-sensitive zones, wildlife corridors, aquifers, ground water recharging terrains, biodiversity surveys, studies on microflora and micro fauna, nutrient cycling, soil and slope stability, etc. These ecologically important factors are not restricted to slopes above 3 degrees but cover the whole range irrespective of slope or height and can be on plain lands as well as troughs of the Aravallis.
In fact, the role of the FSI now gets extremely curious. The DG FSI warned that using the 100-meter definition would leave 90 per cent of the range unprotected in September 2025. But the DG FSI as the Chair of the TSC agreed to the 100-meter definition on October 11, 2025. Now the ex-DG FSI has published a recent media report in March 2026, extolling the virtues of a 2011 mapping of the Aravallis wherein again only the 3-degree slope was taken as the criterion without any ecological parameter. It is bewildering as to how the DG FSI can give different reports wearing different hats! The DG FSI as the Chair of the TSC of AEC had every right to put his dissent on record rather than propounding it as the Chair.
The amicus in his report states that the AEC was unsigned and undated. However, this report was submitted by MoEF&CC to the SC in an affidavit dated 13/10/2025, making it official and legitimate and the contentions of the amicus an incorrect interpretation of facts. The amicus also states that the FSI report was suppressed in the MoEF&CC affidavit. This too is incorrect considering that the DG FSI as the TSC Chair put forward this uniform definition.
Further, the amicus has apparently been critical of the role of MoEF&CC in submitting an unsigned and undated AEC report with the implications that the ministry was wilfully trying to get a blatantly unscientific report that strongly recommended mining to be accepted by the Supreme Court. It is also very disturbing as to why the Supreme Court took on record such a vitiated report and gave orders favouring mining, directing that a Saranada like Management Plan for Sustainable Mining (MSMP) for Aravalli hills be prepared, rather than conservation when in the amicus’s own words, the scope of the AEC was conservation as specified by the Supreme Court.
The amicus states that the AEC has misconstrued the order of the Court dated August 12, 2025, by restricting its definition only for mining purposes. But in that case, why did the SC consider this lopsided report which was against its own orders?
With such a state of affairs, can we expect a HPEC report that prioritises conservation and protection of the Aravallis or another iteration of the previous report which exploits the Aravallis for mining while paying lip service to conservation? Sadly, previous experience and the state of affairs predict mining will be prioritised at the cost of conservation of our forests, wildlife and ecological security of our people.
Prakriti Srivastava is a former officer of the Indian Forest Service and Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Kerala)
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth