NEEM KA THANA: Staggeringly deep pits from large-scale mining dot India’s ancient Aravalli Mountains, threatening the future of a forested buffer that New Delhi relies on for protection from oven-hot desert winds.
Residents have long protested that the hills in the 700-kilometer stretch are being ripped apart by uncontrolled mining to feed an insatiable hunger for concrete in some of the world’s fastest-growing cities.
Late last year, India’s Supreme Court ordered a ban on new mining licenses in the region, but some fear the move is too late.
Loss of the hills increases already dangerously hot urban temperatures, increases the risk of desertification and exacerbates health problems, experts warn.
For those living in the Aravallis, which stretch from the western state of Gujarat through Rajasthan to the heart of New Delhi, the consequences are already existential.
“Mining has devastated our region,” said Salle Kumar, a 34-year-old farmer who lives in a village sandwiched between two massive mines in Rajasthan. “Our rivers are dead, our fields are barren.”
‘Violently shaking’
Lung diseases are also common, residents say.
“There is a blanket of dust all day from all the mining and rock crushing,” said Subhash Saini, whose brother died of what private doctors said was silicosis, a disease caused by dust inhalation.
A state hospital insisted it was tuberculosis, although silicosis can also make people more susceptible to tuberculosis.
Most of the Aravallis are in Rajasthan and a quarter of the state’s hills have been quarried, a Supreme Court-appointed committee found in 2018.
Mines extract gneiss and granite for construction from the giant pits that now surround the village of Chatru Ki Dhani, home to fewer than 200 people.
When AFP visited, explosions rang out repeatedly through the burning hot air as explosions split rock for mining.
In villager Om Prakash Verma’s home, the constant activity has left cracks in the walls. Other homes simply collapsed, residents said.
“The ground shakes violently every time there is an explosion, which is all day all night,” said Verma, describing quarry workers who beat his aunt when she participated in protests against the mines.
‘Alarmist claims’
India’s environment ministry says only 0.19% or 277 square kilometers (106 sq mi) of the Aravalli landscape is open to mining.
“Contrary to alarmist claims, there is no imminent threat to the ecology of the Aravallis,” it said in a statement in December.
But independent audits suggest a much wider mining footprint.
A 2020 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, using satellite imagery and field verification, found about 34% of surveyed licensed mines beyond their legal limits.
A 2025 judicial committee found 2,339 square kilometers of mines in the Rajasthan part of the Aravallis alone.
The scale of illegal activity means the Supreme Court’s decision in December to ban new mining licenses is too little, too late, activists say.
“Most existing mining leases are flawed and given without proper verification,” said veteran anti-mining campaigner Kailash Meena.
“On top of that, there is widespread illegal mining – as audit after audit has confirmed.”
‘Physical barrier’
The degradation of the Aravallis will affect the whole of northern India, say experts.
The area is a “physical barrier to dust storms and heat waves” from the western Thar desert, ecologist CR Babu said.
Desertification is already moving east, threatening the floodplains of the Ganges, he warned.
“If we don’t protect the Aravalli, the northern Gangetic plains – which are a food basket for the rest of the country – would become a desert,” he said.
Delhi, where temperatures in May hit 45C for several days in a row, is at particular risk of becoming “a dust bowl with extreme heat stress,” 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 mining,” he said. “But now that city dwellers are realizing that their cities are getting warmer, everyone now wants to save the Aravallis.”
Parts of the hills, which peak at 1,722 meters (5,813 ft), still harbor dwindling populations of leopards, sloth bears, hyenas and antelopes.
They offer a glimpse of what has been lost, with resilient shrubs painting the rolling hills dark green.
In Rajasthan’s Bhagwanpura village, 18-year-old Nikita Meena and other residents have camped on a hilltop since January to prevent miners from entering one of the last untouched stretches.
“Whatever, we won’t let the miners come here,” she said. “All mining brings is destruction.”
