The Aravalli Range, which is the oldest mountain range in India, has never been as well-known as the Himalayas and the Western Ghats. The Aravallis, which go through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi, are both old in terms of geology and bad for politics. Their steady disappearance over the years—due to mining, real estate growth, and weaker regulations—has been a slow administrative decision rather than a terrible environmental disaster. So, the current debate about the Aravallis isn’t just about conservation. It has to do with how India deals with land, growth, and environmental limits.

The Aravallis are important for the environment, even though they are quiet. They act as a natural barrier against Thar desertification, recharge groundwater aquifers, control microclimates, and protect the Delhi-NCR region from heat and air pollution. Researchers have often warned that the Aravallis’ decline makes heat waves, dust storms, and groundwater depletion in northern India worse.

But for most of independent India’s planning history, the Aravallis were not seen as ecological infrastructure. A lot of the range, mostly in Haryana and Rajasthan, was called “gair mumkin pahad" (uncultivable hill) or “revenue wasteland". This bureaucratic branding has big effects. These hills were easier to lease, mine, flatten, and make money off of when they were classified as non-forest land.

Mining for quartzite, limestone, and stone aggregates has come a long way since the 1970s. Even when there were worries about the environment, extraction often went on with temporary permits or state-level exemptions. The Aravallis become a sort of bank for cities.

The legal........

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