Panel wants 100m slope as definition for Aravallis hills
New Delhi, Oct. 16 -- More than a year after the Supreme Court entrusted the Centre with the task of defining the Aravalli hills and ranges to curb illegal mining, a high-level committee headed by the Union environment secretary has submitted its report to the court, proposing that any slope with a height of more than 100 metres, measured from the top, will qualify as Aravalli hills.
The report - the first such exercise to lay down a uniform definition for the Aravalli hills - further recommends that to ensure sustainable mining in the Aravalli hill and ranges, no new mining lease, except in the case of critical, strategic, and atomic minerals, should be allowed.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai and justice K Vinod Chandran agreed to consider the report on November 11 and take up objections raised by states to its suggestions.
The new definition has been prepared by an eight-member committee comprising forest department secretaries of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, along with representatives of the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Forest Survey of India (FSI), and the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), which assists the court on forest and environment issues.
The report states: "Any landform in the Aravalli districts having an elevation of 100 metres or more from the local relief shall be termed as Aravalli hills." For measuring this, the highest slope will be taken as a reference point, and the 100 metres will be measured from the highest point on the slope to the lowest contour line on the hill. "The entire landform lying within the area enclosed by such lowest contour, whether actual or notionally extended, together with the hill, its supporting slopes, and associated landforms irrespective of their gradient, shall be deemed to constitute part of the Aravalli Hills," it adds.
The committee further defined the Aravalli Range as "two or more Aravalli Hills located within a proximity of 500 metres from each other, measured from the outermost point on the boundary of the lowest contour line on the two hills."
After marking the extent of the Aravalli Ranges, the committee recommended that to ensure "sustainable mining", no new mining leases - except for critical, strategic, and atomic minerals - be allowed within the designated Aravalli Hills and Ranges. It further proposed that core or inviolate areas be identified within these ranges where mining should be prohibited....
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