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Mine to destroy

An ecological crisis looms large as Aravalli hills get flattened and Haryana dithers on an effective strategy to counter illegal mining
A flattened hill is proof of Haryana being a key playground for illegal miners, thanks to the porous border, the camouflage the Aravallis offer and lack of stringent anti-mining measures. Photos: Sumedha Sharma
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It’s early morning, but teenagers are already on the job of keeping a close watch on any non-resident entering Ghata Shamshabad village, located on the foothills of the Aravallis in Nuh district. A week after nearly 25 villagers, including women and children, violently confronted a team of Haryana’s anti-mining enforcement bureau that detained a few men and impounded a JCB, an unusual eeriness grips the village. Two cops were injured in the melee as the villagers forced the release of the men who were accused of illegal mining.

Since then, raids have been conducted in the village almost every other day, but the police have not been able to lay their hands on any mining equipment. The tractor-trolleys and JCBs that are usually parked outside modest homes have gone missing. Every single resident has the same answer to offer: “Rishtedari mein gaye hain Rajasthan” (The owners have gone to their relatives in Rajasthan).

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Shamshabad is among the 20-odd Haryana villages along the Rajasthan border that have gained notoriety for active involvement in illegal mining. The villagers claim they have been dependent on mining for as long as they can remember and after the temporary slump from 2022 to 2023, they are back in business even as the Haryana government insists no illegal mining is taking place in the state.

A woman named in the FIR does not hold back on why illegal mining is here to stay: “How do we feed our children? We only know how to mine stones and transport them. The business was shut for almost a year and we had to borrow money to run our households. They come and say this is illegal and take away our vehicles. Now they are coming to pick our men. We will stop this if you give us some legal work that fetches the same amount of money.”

Banned by the Supreme Court through successive orders in 2002 and 2009, illegal mining continues to haunt the Aravalli range in Haryana.

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The mountain range was indiscriminately mined from 1990 to 2009-10. Sharing its borders with Rajasthan, where the activity is licensed and legal, Haryana is still a key playground for illegal miners, thanks to the porous border, the camouflage that the Aravalli terrain offers and the lack of any stringent anti-mining measures. There was a period of respite for the hills in 2022-2023 when the mining mafia murdered a Haryana Police DSP and the state machinery got into action. However, thanks to political patronage on both sides of the border, illegal miners have bounced back, targeting hill after hill to make up for the losses.

Haryana has lost four Aravalli hills within a span of a year to blasts, the latest being in Rawa village in December. The total loss to the state exchequer is put at over Rs 2,100 crore, but more frightening is the threat to the fragile Aravalli range, which acts as a crucial barrier between Rajasthan and North India. Without the protection of the Aravallis, the deserts of Rajasthan could encroach into the fertile plains of North India, leading to ecological and environmental consequences.

Ironically, for Haryana’s Mining Minister Krishan Panwar, deflection seems to be the appropriate response: “The hill is not part of our revenue land and belongs to Rajasthan. The allegations of illegal mining in Haryana are all baseless.” Rajasthan may have chosen to be silent, but it has registered an FIR regarding illegal mining while identifying the hill as being in Haryana and that four amongst the six accused are residents of Ferozpur Jhirka in Nuh.

Last year, the Haryana government listed plans to erect pillars along its border with Rajasthan to delineate its territory. The state also announced a review of revenue records as mining of acres of hills had been allowed by Rajasthan claiming it to be in their territory. Following an uproar, Haryana ordered a geo-spatial survey but environmentalists and locals call it a farce.

“We are seeing this for the last one year. They come every single night and we hear JCBs and blasts. We don’t know about revenue records but four hills from our area have vanished and the mafia threatens us. The government teams came and we gave them all the videos and even named suspects, but nothing changes. They come from Rajasthan and then go back. We all are scared for our lives and cannot come in the forefront,” says a panchayat member from Rawa village, where a hill has been blasted recently. The village, along with Chittora and Naharika, is the hotbed of illegal mining activity in Ferozpur Jhirka area.

“Every time there is an incident, they say we are doing this, we are doing that, but on the ground, nothing happens. The illegal miners enjoy political patronage and to aid them, the government has weakened all enforcements. How does it matter which state the hill belongs to? What matters is that we have lost four hills within a span of a year and nobody cares,” says environmentalist Vaishali Rana Chandra.

Mining is not only prevalent in Nuh but is also a reality in Mahendergarh, Rewari, Faridabad and even Gurugram. It was in December last year that the National Green Tribunal pulled up the authorities for failing to curtail mining in Faridabad’s Anangpur. Gurugram’s Sohna area, especially villages like Rithoj, is amongst the key vulnerable points.

In all the districts, what stands out is a visible lack of enforcement. Over 50 forest department check-points in the Aravallis in Gurugram have been disbanded since 2019. The enforcement bureau, formed in 2024, is yet to set up any forest check-point and has just eight FIRs to show, primarily impounding vehicles with stones.

The recently constituted Aravalli Rejuvenation Board has had just one meeting. The ruling BJP had sought an amendment to the Punjab Land Preservation Act, 1900, before the 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to ‘deforest’ majority of Aravallis. The state still insists that Aravallis’ protection is high on the agenda. “Aravalli conservation is our top priority. The key trouble in case of mining is from Rajasthan. We are strengthening our border patrol and increasing patrolling to check the menace,” says state Forest Minister Rao Narbir Singh.

The Opposition, however, accuses the BJP governments of Haryana, Rajasthan and at the Centre of collusion. “The BJP is in power, what has it done other than trying to cover up the issue? If a DSP had died in another state, there would have been an uproar, but nobody cared here. Why is the Centre silent? They should strengthen enforcement rather than just promising to get the geo-spatial survey done,” says Congress Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala.

In Rajasthan, where the Chief Minister holds the mining portfolio, a topic of debate is the failure to curtail illegal mining under the garb of licensed crushers in Bharatpur and Deeg areas that border Haryana. The Supreme Court has in its latest orders extended legal mining operations in Rajasthan until March 31. The issue of illegal mining, though, remains unsettled.

MASSIVE LOSS

Between 1975 and 2019, nearly 8 per cent of the Aravalli hill range has disappeared, says a study covering four states, projecting the losses to rise to around 22 per cent by 2059 if ‘explosive’ urbanisation and mining continue at the current pace in Delhi-NCR.

Researchers from the Central University of Rajasthan studied satellite images and land-use maps between 1975 and 2019 to come up with the estimates.

Data showed that 5,772.7 sq km (7.6 per cent) of the Aravalli range was flattened during the 44-year period. Of this, nearly 5 per cent (3,676 sq km) of the hills was converted into barren land and another 776.8 sq km (around 1 per cent) into settlements.

The projected loss by 2059 of the total Aravalli area is 16,360 sq km.

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