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Disquiet simmers among voters over exploited Aravallis

By, Kotputli/neem Ka Thana/bharatpur (rajasthan)
Nov 23, 2023 06:20 AM IST

Illegal mining in the Aravalli range has caused environmental degradation, health issues, and social unrest.

Right next to the village of Rela in the newly carved Kotputli district in the Aravalli range Rajasthan, a barren hill stands tall. A deep mining pit, cutting through its base, trails off into the distance. Inside, a bevy of heavy machinery is drilling through the tenuous slopes, and earthmovers are loading stones into trucks dotting the trenches. From this near unbreathable cloud of dust, these trucks emerge intermittently, stopping at a security gate for a brief minute, before making their way on a sandy two-lane road that leads to the state highway.

The Aravallis impact life in between 80 and 90 assembly seats across poll-bound Rajasthan. (Chetan Chauhan/HT Photo)
The Aravallis impact life in between 80 and 90 assembly seats across poll-bound Rajasthan. (Chetan Chauhan/HT Photo)

Less than a kilometre away, in the habited part of the village, 80-year-old Kurasiram Gujjar coughs incessantly and curses the day mining began. He points to the hill, shorn of trees, and covered in a mining haze. “My father would tell me how wild animals would roam close to our village and he would accompany the British on their hunting expeditions. I curse the day we agreed to the mining, thinking it would change our fortunes,” Gujjar said.

READ | Aravalli Rejuvenation Board formed to curb illegal mining in Aravallis

The forests around Rela began degrading in the late 1990s, when illegal stone quarrying started, only to worsen when the area was officially leased out for mining in 2005. “Although we were promised economic prosperity, the mines have brought silicosis, crime and outsiders to our village of cattle grazers,” said Nathu Yadav, a second Rela resident.

Five kilometres away, at Chotiya Ki Dhani, where two stone crushers work round the clock, 65-year-old Geeta Devi, a silicosis patient said she has not had a sound sleep for days. “My husband and I used to work for eight to 10 hours a day in the mines to supplement our meagre farm incomes. But when doctors told me I would die because there is dust all over my lungs, I stopped working in the crusher. Now, it is this noise that will kill me,” Devi said.

These are not the stories of one or two families alone, but those of villages spread across the broken hills of the Aravallis, India’s oldest mountain range, spread across Alwar, Kotputli, Neem Ka Thana and Sikar districts of western Rajasthan, extending right to Kishangarh in Ajmer and Abu Road in Banswara. Accounts that may well be a factor in the crucial assembly elections later this week.

Politics in the Aravallis

Rajasthan is home to 80% of the expanse of the Aravallis, which act as north-west India’s critical water recharge zone; as a barrier against desertification; as a pollution sink; and as a fast receding biodiversity and wildlife habitat. It has three broad zones — the upper range that covers Delhi, Haryana and north-eastern Rajasthan, the middle range that covers central Rajasthan, and the lower range, that extends from south-eastern Rajasthan right up to northern Gujarat.

READ | Haryana launches toll-free number to report illegal mining in Aravallis

It’s important to note as Rajasthan heads to elections that the Aravallis impact life in between 80 and 90 assembly seats.

While an assembly-wise break-up for Aravalli Hills is unavailable, electoral data is available for districts through which the Aravallis pass.

In the 2018 assembly elections, in Alwar, the Congress won five of the 11 seats and the BJP, BSP and independents bagged two each. In Sikar district, from which Kotputli district was carved out earlier this year, the Congress won six of seven seats. The other went to an Independent, who is now contesting on a Congress ticket. Other districts through which Aravalli passes such as Udaipur, Banswara and Dungarpur comprise of 17 assembly seats. The Congress won six of these seats in the last elections, BJP nine and Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) two.

Little wonder then, that in the months ahead of the polls, political interest in the destruction of the Aravallis has grown. In December 2022, for instance, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met a delegation of activists working to save the range when his Bharat Jodo Yatra was passing through Alwar. “Rahul ji heard us silently and directed chief minister Ashok Gehlot to stop the illegal mining. He was also asked to implement our demand for declaring biodiversity conservation zones,” said Kailash Mina, an activist who was part of the delegation, and has worked in the field for several decades.

Just ahead of the elections, the Aravalli Bachao Andolan (ABA) submitted a people’s manifesto to political parties that urged them to stop all illegal mining close to human and animal habitats, revive old water bodies, and notify all areas with green cover as forests to ensure protection. “For the first time, people living around Aravallis presented a manifesto to political parties. They were told that they need to be protected to provide a better life to our future generations,” said Neelam Ahluwalia, a member of ABA.

On November 17, in its manifesto for the state polls, the BJP promised a scheme to revive forest cover and protect the Aravalli range. The promise was also part of the party’s manifesto for the Gujarat assembly elections in 2022 where it promised a comprehensive Aravalli protection plan from Delhi to Gujarat. “But it remained a promise on paper,” Mina said.

A senior Congress leader also said that his party is also likely to formulate a plan to protect the hills and provide alternate employment avenues for people affected by stone mining in the hills. “We also plan to bring more areas under conservation zones and improve forest cover,” the leader said, asking not to be named.

But there are challenges -- illegal mining largely takes place because of connivance between political leaders irrespective of their party affiliation and the local administration irrespective of who is in power.

The Congress leaded quoted above admitted this was the ground reality, and Radhey Shyam, a local BJP leader in Kotputli, agreed. “Mining is the biggest source of revenue for political leaders to fight polls,” he said.

Death and destruction

In Silodara village in Kotputli, Brajesh Meena is still a shattered man. In 2022, he lost both his parents to silicosis, a long-term lung disease caused by inhaling large amounts of silica. “It was a slow death. We didn’t even realise for a long time that their deterioration was because of silicosis. There are several others that suffer from the same disease in the region,” he said.

Data from the Rajasthan government, which in 2019 started a scheme to provide free treatment to silicosis patients and compensation in cases of deaths, shows that there are 48,448 silicosis patients in the state, of which 31,869 are certified.

Kotputli district collector Shubham Chaudhary said that the administration was taking action, and teams of the district administration, police, transport and mining departments were regularly cracking down on illegal mining. “Health and awareness camps are being organised on a routine basis in rural areas to identify diseases and informing local residents about general health and caution that must be taken,” she said.

But those associated with mining and its allied businesses said that the industry had brought with it employment and had improved the local economy. Sriram Gujjar, covered with the soot that engulfs every crevasse of his village of Magadiya, said, “We are three brothers and own a dumper each, which carries stones from the Rela mine to crushers.”

He doesn’t mind the dust, he says, it paid for his family to shift to the town of Kotputli where his children now study. “This is the price we pay for dreaming of a better life,” he said.

Boarder impact of mining

The broader debate around mining and its impact on the region is not recent.

In 2022, the Supreme Court banned any mining in the Aravalli range carried out without permission from the environment ministry. This came four years after an apex court-appointed central empowered committee said that 25% of the Aravalli range in the mining zones was lost due to illegal mining in Rajasthan since 1967-68, and over 10,300 hectares was affected outside official lease boundaries in 15 districts of the state. “The extent of illegal mining in terms of percentage area exceeds 100% in many cases, especially in respect of smaller mines allotted for minor minerals,” the report said, based on satellite images gleaned between 2008 and 2010 along with ground verification.

A 2017 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said that a total of 4,072 cases of illegal mining, transportation and storage of minerals were registered between 2011-12 and 2016-17, and 9.8 million tonne of minerals was illegally excavated. “These numbers were based on the cases lodged, which happens rarely,” Kailash Mina said.

Between 1975 and 2019, the Aravallis lost 7.63%, or 5772.7 sq km of forest land -- close to four times the area of Delhi equal to four times the area of Delhi -- due to human interventions, a 2023 study by the Central University of Rajasthan said. It said that at the current pace, 21.64% of forest cover will be lost by 2059.

“The damage to the Aravallis has already created an ecological imbalance in the region. Despite an increase in rainfall during the study period, the groundwater level has gone down, showing the impact of the loss of green cover. The loss of green cover is also a cause for the rise in air pollution in the north eastern plains as the natural barrier for dust and pollutants coming from drier western Rajasthan,” said LK Sharma, head of environmental studies at the university and lead author of the study.

A senior government official said, “The groundwater level in Neem Ka Thana has fallen to below 800 ft and below 400 ft even in some areas close to the foothills of the forest range.”

The Congress government in the state argues that, even in its present tenure, action has been taken. In April 2023, the Rajasthan government declared three conservation zones -- Sorsan in Baran district, Khichan in Jodhpur, and Hamirgarh in Bhilwara -- and proposed a conservation zone Baleshwar in Neem Ka Thana. “These zones will promote forest cover and wildlife, and put some check on illegal mining,” a Rajasthan environment official said.

But the situation on the ground is different. In Barhala, for instance, the lone solitary check post set up after a court order asking the forest department to keep a check on mining activity, was locked in the middle of the day. Right next to it, Shambu Yadav said that it only opened when forest officials from Jaipur visited. “Sab mile hue hain (there is a connivance between everyone between all),” he said, staring at stone chip laden trucks rumbling along the dry, but once free-flowing Kasarali river.

But back at Rela, Kurasiram Gujjar, in his Rajasthani kurta and dhoti, retains a modicum of hope. “We now see young people holding protests on the road against mining and rising air pollution. I hope political parties will listen to them.”

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