Congress questions Modi govt’s push to redefine Aravalli range

The ancient Aravallis, a weathered spine of stone that has stood guard over the subcontinent for millennia, have become the latest battleground between the Congress and the Modi government, with the Opposition accusing the Centre of being “hell-bent” on redefining a mountain range it calls India’s irreplaceable natural heritage.

Raising the issue on Tuesday, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the Aravallis are not just a geographical feature but an ecological lifeline that demands restoration and protection, not semantic reengineering. In a pointed post on X, Ramesh said the recent “clarifications” offered by the Union environment and forest minister had only deepened doubts.

“The Aravallis are part of our natural heritage and have immense ecological value. They need meaningful protection,” Ramesh said, asking why the government was determined to redraw their definition and “for whose benefit” such an exercise was being undertaken. He also questioned why the expert recommendations of the Forest Survey of India were, in his words, being “deliberately ignored”.

The former environment minister took issue with the government’s claim that mining leases cover just 0.19 per cent of the Aravalli region. While that fraction may sound negligible, he argued, it still translates into about 68,000 acres—an expanse too vast to be brushed aside. More importantly, Ramesh said, the calculation itself is misleading.

The government, he alleged, uses the total landmass of 34 Aravalli districts across four states—about 1.44 lakh square kilometres — as its baseline. “This is the wrong denominator,” he said, insisting that the correct measure should be the actual area occupied by the Aravalli hills within these districts. Viewed through that lens, the 0.19 per cent figure, he warned, would balloon dramatically.

Citing verifiable data from 15 of the 34 districts, Ramesh claimed that in these areas alone, the Aravallis account for nearly a third of the landmass. Yet, he said, there is no clarity on how much of this hilly terrain would lose protection under the revised definition and be opened up to mining or other development.

He cautioned that adopting local elevation profiles — as suggested by the minister — could strip legal protection from hills rising more than 100 metres, and potentially unlock large swathes of the Aravallis in the Delhi-NCR for real estate projects, intensifying environmental stress in an already burdened region.

Ramesh also linked the proposed redefinition to plans to alter the boundaries of the Sariska Tiger Reserve to allow mining, warning that fragmenting an interconnected ecosystem would erode its ecological integrity. “Such fragmentation elsewhere is already wreaking havoc,” he said.

The government, however, has pushed back sharply. On Monday, environment minister Bhupender Yadav accused the Congress of peddling “misinformation,” asserting that mining is legally permitted in only 0.19 per cent of the Aravalli area and that the Modi government remains “fully committed” to protecting and restoring the range. He also alleged that the Congress had presided over rampant illegal mining in Rajasthan during its tenure.

The controversy unfolds against the backdrop of a November 2025 Supreme Court decision that accepted a uniform legal definition of the Aravalli Hills and Range, based on the recommendations of an environment ministry-led committee. Under this framework, an “Aravalli Hill” is defined as a landform rising at least 100 metres above its local surroundings, while an “Aravalli Range” is a cluster of two or more such hills located within 500 metres of each other.

For the Congress, the issue goes beyond definitions and percentages — it is about safeguarding a fragile, ancient ecosystem. For the government, it is a question of clarity and legality. Between these competing narratives, the fate of one of the world’s oldest mountain ranges hangs in the balance.

With PTI inputs