Overview
- The Environment Ministry directed Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat to stop approving any new mining leases across the full Aravalli range pending a comprehensive plan.
- ICFRE has been tasked to prepare a Management Plan for Sustainable Mining, assess cumulative impacts, and place a draft in the public domain for consultations, with no timeline announced.
- States must enforce stricter compliance at existing mines in line with environmental safeguards and Supreme Court orders during the planning period.
- In November, the Supreme Court accepted a uniform test defining an Aravalli hill as 100 metres above local relief and a range as clusters within 500 metres, a standard critics say shrinks protected areas.
- The government says only about 0.19% of the Aravalli area could qualify for mining, while documents note carve-outs for notified critical, strategic and atomic minerals under the MMDR Act, drawing opposition criticism.