SUCI(Communist) strongly protests planned destruction of Aravalli hills
Comrade Provash Ghosh, General Secretary, SUCI(Communist), issued the following statement on 24-12-25: “The recent Supreme Court recently judgement accepting the new definition of the 692 kilometer long Aravalli Hills spread across north-west India that ‘any landform having an elevation of 100 meters or more from the local relief’ would only be reckoned as part of that Hill range, as proposed by a committee spearheaded by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, is going to be catastrophic for this already beleaguered landscape. Under the new definition, only hill areas above a certain elevation (around 100 meters) are officially recognized as part of the protected range. This excludes a vast majority of the low-lying hills in Rajasthan, making them vulnerable to mining and commercial development. Forest cover in the Aravalli enhances precipitation and checks drought across the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. Trees and canopy cover of the Aravalli hills preserve humidity in the atmosphere, modulate wind velocity and thereby help regulate rainfall patterns. Also, new, narrow legal definition (hills >100m) would destroy natural recharge zones, disrupt underground water flow, and increases runoff, ultimately depleting aquifers that feed lakes and rivers, worsening water scarcity. As a result, more surface-water bodies will disappear, severely impacting water availability in north-west India, agricultural productivity, which has declined across the Aravalli region in south Haryana and Rajasthan as a result of the unavailability of water due to excessive mining and because a layer of dust from stone-crushers covers the crops, will be further negatively impacted with more hills being opened for mining. The remnant forests of the Aravallis which act as a critical forest habitat and corridor, and a biodiversity hotspot will shrink further and increase human–wildlife conflict in the region. Also, reckless destruction of the Aravalli hills which act as a crucial natural barrier against the Thar Desert could lead to desertification meaning extension of the desert areas. Visibly enraged, the downtrodden tribal communities across southern Rajasthan are agitating fearing widespread displacement and the destruction of their culture and livelihoods. Protesters have rightly been warning that unregulated mining has already caused severe environmental harm, including increased air pollution in the Delhi-NCR region and any further leniency in this regard would spell complete disaster to both the ecosystem and human habitats. We strongly protest the capitalist conspiracy of such a planned destruction of more than 90 per cent of the Aravalli hills, including vast stretches of low-lying scrub hills, grasslands and ridges, for the purpose of commercial mining in the interest of the giant corporates and extend our full support to the just struggle of the affected tribal Indians. We also call upon all well-meaning people, environmentalists, scientists, foresters and biodiversity specialists to raise a united voice of protest against such a planned assault on nature and thereby seriously damaging the ecosystem much threatening human civilization just to satiate profit greed of mining mafias and corporate sharks.