Deep Nexus: Illegal mining scars Aravalli tail-end, flattens several hillocks in Faridabad

Bijendra Ahlawat

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Faridabad, August 2

Deep gorges, craters and flattening of several hills and hillocks of the Aravalli range have scarred the tail-end of the oldest mountain chain irreparably as illegal mining goes on with impunity despite a ban.

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Unlike Nuh where mining is usually carried out after it gets dark, the difficult terrain and alleged lack of checks have made carrying out covert operations easy for locals even in the day in the home district of Haryana Mines Minister Mool Chand Sharma. He said his department was committed to curbing the menace. As many as 38 cases had been registered this year, he said. “Anangpur, Pali, Mohabtabad, Mangar, Sirohi and Khori villages are the hotspots where illegal mining is rampant,” says Sunil Harsana, a resident of Mangar village and forest conservation activist. There are over 3,500 camels in the vicinity of Anangpur village alone, a local resident claimed, adding that stone was transported daily through “secret passages” in the hills to stone crushers.

“While a tractor fetches a villager between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000, a camel cart earns them Rs 500 per round. This costs the stone crusher owner three to four times less than getting a truckload from the legal mines in Narnaul and Rajasthan,” says Harsana.

Despite a ban imposed two decades ago, mining of stone and construction material is spread over 79,316 hectares known as “gair mumkin pahad” (mountains or land not fit for cultivation), which was admitted by the state government in an affidavit filed before the NGT in 2019 in response to a petition.

“The first crusher zone in the district came up in 1987, when such plants operating in Lal Kuan in Delhi were banned by the Delhi High Court for creating pollution and shifted here,” says Subhash Sharma, who had filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 1999 over a threat to his life from the mining mafia.

According to Sharma, a CBI investigation later had detected a loss of Rs 85 crore to the state exchequer due to large-scale mining. He said besides leasing of mines to influential political persons, around 200 stone crusher plants were set up between 1988 and 2022.

Spread over 79,316 ha

• Anangpur, Pali, Mohabtabad, Mangar, Sirohi and Khori villages mining hotspots
• Mafia uses tractors & camels
• 3,500 camels in vicinity of Anangpur village alone
• Illegal mining spread over 79,316 hectares