NEW DELHI: Congress on Wednesday slammed the Centre’s directions to states to impose a ban on granting new mining leases in the Aravalli range, calling it a “bogus attempt at damage control that will not fool anyone”Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that despite the fresh directive, “the Aravallis are not being saved, but are being sold out,” he said in a post on X.On Wednesday, the Union environment ministry directed states to impose a complete ban on new mining leases in the Aravallis and expand protected zones, describing it as a major step toward the “conservation and protection.” The directive aims to safeguard the Aravallis as a continuous geological ridge extending from Gujarat to the NCR and to end unregulated mining across the region.The Centre’s order came after a public row over its new definition of the Aravallis, which classifies an “Aravalli Hill” as a landform with an elevation of at least 100 meters above its surrounding terrain, and an “Aravalli Range” as a cluster of two or more such hills within 500 meters of each other. However, the former Union environment minister dismissed the move as insufficient, arguing that the core issue remains unaddressed. “These are pious proclamations but the dangerous 100m+ redefinition of the Aravallis — rejected by the Forest Survey of India, the Supreme Court-mandated Central Empowered Committee, and the Supreme Court’s amicus curiae — remains unchanged,” said Ramesh.He has repeatedly said that the redefinition being adopted by the Center has been opposed by the Forest Survey of India, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court, and the apex court’s amicus curiae.The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Center rejected the charge that the new definition weakens environmental safeguards, maintaining that more than 90 per cent of the Aravalli region remains protected and that the revised definition does not relax mining controls, reported PTI.In an earlier post, Ramesh had accused the government of misleading the public on the issue. “It is by now abundantly clear that the Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change is being economical with the truth on the Aravallis issue and is misleading the public,” he said.He also questioned why the PM Modi-led government is pushing through what he described as a “fatally flawed” redefinition of the Aravallis despite widespread expert opposition.
