Aravalli committee failed to visit mining-impacted villages

New Delhi: Rural communities and social activists have raised concerns over the field trips conducted by the Supreme Court-appointed Aravalli committee, saying it failed to visit mining-impacted villages and carry out meaningful consultations with affected people.

The high-powered committee has been tasked with conducting an independent review of the Centre’s report on the definition and delineation of the Aravalli hill range. It has to submit its report by August 31.

The field visits were conducted between August 6 and August 10 in four cities — Gurugram, Alwar, Ajmer and Udaipur — according to a statement issued on Tuesday by the Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyaan, a group of environmentalists, social activists and others.

“Without meaningful consultations with the rural communities in all the 64 districts (of the Aravalli range) … in the five states of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, no decision should be taken which will decide the fate of India’s oldest mountain range,” Neelam Ahluwalia, co-founder of the group, said in the statement.

Sixty-three districts are mentioned in the Forest Survey of India’s September 2025 report. In addition, the Braj Bhoomi hills in Mathura are considered part of the Aravallis by local communities.

Kailash Chand Yadhav, secretary of the Jodhpura Sangharsh Samiti, alleged that the committee failed to visit Jodhpura, a village in Rajasthan’s Kotputli-Behror district, where residents are suffering due to the operations of Ultra Tech Cement Limited’s limestone mines and stone crushers.

“The committee members did not come to the village despite this village visit being on their agenda for the day. The committee had lunch at a hotel for an hour, barely a few kilometres from our village,” he said.

It has also been alleged that the mining lobby and the local administration dominated the public hearings during the field visits.

“The mining lobby was present in full force in Alwar, Ajmer and Udaipur, where civil society from urban areas and villagers talking about the negative impacts of mining were threatened later,” Ahluwalia said.

The Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyaan’s statement highlighted that the timing of the public hearing in Udaipur was changed just a night before, resulting in several people failing to reach the venue on time.

Sadhna Meena, a Bhil Adivasi leader, said, “The original time given to meet the committee was 3-4 pm on August 10…. However, just the night before, the timing was suddenly changed to 10 am. Since people were expected to travel from across the Udaipur division, including neighbouring districts … many of them could not reach (the venue) on such short notice.”

The committee’s public-consultation process has already been facing criticism. Different organisations have pointed out that its July 21 notification seeking representations, suggestions and inputs from a broad spectrum of stakeholders has failed to reach rural communities and affected people.

The notification said submissions, supported “to the extent possible” by documentary evidence or verifiable material, must be made via email or an official Google Form within 21 days of the notice.

In its letter to the committee dated August 2, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated social welfare organisation said the notification concerned appeared not to have been widely published in mainstream or regional newspapers, particularly in Hindi and Gujarati.

These are the principal languages of communication in the states through which the Aravallis extend, namely Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, according to the Akhil Bharatiya Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram.

On August 4, environmental group People for Aravallis also wrote to the committee, saying the 21-day period for submitting suggestions is insufficient and that the process of submitting comments via email or Google Form is exclusionary for rural communities.

In its latest statement, the Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyaan has demanded that the August 31 deadline for the committee to submit its report be extended. It has also urged that the committee visits all the districts of the Aravalli range.