5 months ago
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On December 23 Air Marshal and the Integrated Defence Staff main Ashutosh Dixit laid retired the defence establishment’s case for captious minerals. Modern defence systems, helium said, trust connected reliable entree to these minerals and import dependence has go a strategic vulnerability due to the fact that planetary proviso chains are concentrated and exposed to export controls and geopolitics. He besides linked aforesaid sufficiency successful defence manufacturing and operational readiness to unafraid mineral worth chains and pointed to the National Critical Mineral Mission arsenic the country’s argumentation conveyance of choice.
Even if they were understated, his words come arsenic the defence establishment’s publication to the charged nationalist debate implicit however the Aravalli Hills should beryllium protected and whether their mineral wealthiness should beryllium mined.
Right now, India doesn’t resoluteness clashes betwixt its clime commitments and concern request done immoderate wide rules. Instead it often resorts to enforcement discretion and opaque instruments similar bureau memoranda, project-specific exemptions, and ad hoc appraisals that dainty “national defence” oregon “strategic considerations” arsenic capable crushed to evade scrutiny. The biology interaction appraisal (EIA) model itself allows exemptions from nationalist consultation for projects linked to information and different strategical considerations “as determined by the Central Government”. This unneurotic with the government’s disinclination to hindrance itself to transparent criteria has often rendered the scope of “national interest” arbitrary and opaque, however.
Relief and hindrance
Controversy implicit the Aravalli Hills flared up aft November 20, erstwhile the Supreme Court adopted a azygous mode to place the “hills and ranges”, froze caller mining leases until the Environment Ministry had prepared a sustainable mining program for the landscape, and said mining should beryllium prohibited successful “core” oregon “inviolate” areas, with an objection for critical, strategical and atomic minerals notified nether the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act 1957. The Court called this a “strategic exemption”.
In the caller operational explanation vis-à-vis mining, “Aravalli Hills” is immoderate landform successful the Aravalli districts that rises astatine slightest 100 m supra the section alleviation (measured from the lowest contour enactment encircling the landform). Likewise the “Aravalli Range” is 2 oregon much specified Aravalli Hills that prevarication wrong 500 m of each other, including the landforms successful between.
Environmental groups and absorption parties person argued that this explanation could inactive exclude ample tracts from extortion and weaken enforcement successful a scenery already stressed by amerciable mining, municipality expansion, denudation, and a dropping h2o table. For instance, if a surveyor draws the Aravalli Hills’ bound utilizing the elevation and region rules, the caller scenery that emerges volition beryllium of ‘Aravalli’-like diagnostic sitting similar islands successful a oversea of non-‘Aravalli’ features, including valleys, plains, scrubland, and forests. Yet the second link the Aravalli Hills and marque the existent scenery arsenic bully arsenic it presently is.
And conscionable these features are endangered by the aforesaid Environment Ministry that indispensable execute the sustainable mining program — immoderate it looks similar — besides having weakened the ineligible situation extortion model to beforehand easiness of doing business, creating gaps that marque the “strategic exemption” easier to misuse.
Scope creep
The Ministry has repeatedly softened India’s biology clearance process to trim friction for projects and concern investments since 2014. Two decisions successful 2025 are notable. First, successful May, the Supreme Court had held that ex station facto clearances are alien to biology jurisprudence and “anathema” to the biology interaction appraisal (EIA) model due to the fact that they invert the logic of anterior scrutiny and tin pb to irreparable biology damage. But successful November, the Court recalled that judgment connected review, reopening the abstraction for post facto regularisation, this clip with the Court’s ain uncertainty built into the regulatory space. This constituent wasn’t determination before.
Second, successful September, the Environment Ministry issued an bureau memorandum to accelerate mining projects involving captious minerals by exempting them from nationalist consultations arsenic required by the EIA Notification 2006. This determination didn’t necessitate the notification to beryllium amended due to the fact that it already includes a peculiar clause for “strategic considerations”, and the Ministry utilized that to accelerate projects portion besides reducing the ceremonial abstraction wherever affected communities and autarkic experts could unit the authorities to disclose details of risks and cumulative impact. Ministers besides defended the determination successful Parliament connected nationalist information grounds.
Next, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023 and consequent administrative practices person widened the exemptions for definite activities and person introduced caller categories of onshore and projects with modified clearance requirements. The amended Act applies to onshore notified arsenic ‘forest’ nether the Indian Forest Act 1927 (or different laws) and onshore recorded arsenic wood successful authorities records connected oregon aft October 25, 1980, yet it exempted onshore that had already been shifted to non-forest usage connected oregon earlier December 12, 1996, by a State oregon UT order. It besides exempted onshore on roads and railway tracks, the planetary border, and adjacent “security-related infrastructure” and expanded the database of activities not treated arsenic “non-forest purpose”.
As a result, the Centre and States tin present cod accusation by drilling constrictive holes during exploration to propulsion up stone samples earlier having to record a mining proposal. And successful wood districts with mineral deposits and which overlap with areas notified arsenic harbouring left-wing extremism, it’s present easier to found immoderate connective infrastructure likeroads and powerfulness lines, which tin besides enactment exploration and different mining work.
Sure, the amendments don’t exempt mining outright, but there’s a scope creep that, unneurotic with the government’s sympathetic cognition towards businesses and the post facto regularisation regime, merits scrutiny. If thing else, it serves the state’s framing of exploration arsenic portion of a strategical pipeline for captious minerals, a communicative supported by ministers’ statements successful Parliament and successful authoritative documents.
Strategic legitimacy
This is besides wherefore the nationalist contention implicit the Aravalli Hills matters truthful much. The Supreme Court bid itself linked the Hills to groundwater recharge and to functions that forestall desertification, which are the aforesaid ecosystem services that India needs to sphere to conscionable outcomes linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, including cleanable air, h2o security, and bully surviving conditions.
The Hills besides incorporate oregon are believed to person imaginable for minerals that India’s strategical planners attraction about, including basal metals successful definite established belts, minerals specified arsenic tungsten and others often classified arsenic ‘strategic’, and different bulk minerals including chromatic and rocks. The Court-appointed committee has besides emphasised the imaginable for minerals applicable to the greenish vigor transition, including lithium and rare-earth elements. This combination, unneurotic with the Ministry’s weakening of safeguards, makes the Court’s “strategic exemption” precarious.
Taken unneurotic the authorities has besides efficaciously reduced the accusation that outsiders tin entree to clasp claims of greenness — including “sustainable mining” and the circular system of captious minerals that the caller National Critical Minerals Mission promises — accountable.
If India is going to invoke a “strategic” request to carve retired exceptions successful delicate areas, it should besides formalise however it arbitrates these conflicts, alternatively of letting them beryllium negotiated done exemptions and post-hoc regularisation. At a minimum, the authorities oregon the Court should found a binding trial for erstwhile “strategic considerations” merit simpler oregon easier procedures; necessitate landscape-level cumulative-impact and groundwater assessments earlier each leases; and disclose, successful the nationalist record, assumptions astir the alternatives — including imports, substitution, recycling, and sourcing from little delicate areas — that were rejected. Without specified a framework, clime enactment and economical maturation volition support colliding done ad hoc decisions that grow softly portion biology instrumentality is near to sorb the governmental pressure.
In information if the Indian authorities accepts the defence and concern establishments’ lawsuit that captious minerals are strategical enablers, it should besides judge that strategical proviso chains request strategical legitimacy. This includes the Court’s directions but should besides beryllium augmented by the Environment Ministry ceasing its parallel efforts to widen exemptions and trim procedural checks. On the question of these minerals, the stakes are higher and the temptation to instrumentality shortcuts is greater.
mukunth.v@thehindu.co.in
