No matter how many protests take place in Rajasthan, illegal mining shows no signs of stopping.
राजस्थान: अरावली कटी तो हरियाली ख़त्म, कौन बना रहा अरावली को ‘अरा बलि’
Women from Prempura village in Rajasthan’s Sikar district have been protesting for three years against the rampant illegal mining in the area. Groups of women in Deepawas village are also staging round-the-clock sit-ins. Constant blasts in nearby mines have caused cracks in their homes and put their lives at risk. Children are afraid to go to school due to the debris and stones flying from the explosions. A layer of dust has settled over the vegetation. Mining activities have pushed the groundwater level down to below 1,000 feet.
In 2024, Ojvasi Marbles Private Limited took over 180 hectares of land, 140 hectares of which is recorded as forest land. According to Kailash Meena, an environmental activist from Sikar, villagers are worried that mining will destroy the Girijan River, their only source of water. Most rivers in the region face a similar plight.
Meena says, “A population of over 60,000 across 40 villages depends on this river. Villagers filed a petition against Ojvasi in the Supreme Court, pointing out that, according to a 2010 Forest Survey of India report, the area falls within the Aravalli hills range. The Supreme Court ordered a halt to mining, but nothing happened.”
Protests have also been ongoing for a long time in the Mohanpura-Jodhpur village of Kotputli-Behror district against Aditya Birla’s UltraTech Cement company. People are demanding the closure of the plant and the rehabilitation of affected villagers.
Captain Vinod Singh, a retired Army officer and member of the Jodhpur Sangharsh Samiti—which is leading the agitation—said, “Day-and-night blasting has destroyed 150 homes and 80 tube wells. On November 3 last year, the NGT ordered a ban on any kind of blasting within a half-kilometer radius of the village.” The directive required the Rajasthan government to constitute a committee for the rehabilitation of people affected by pollution (caused by the proximity of crushers and limestone mining operations). It also mandated compensation of ₹50,000 per villager for damaged homes and ₹20,000 for each of the 109 villagers suffering from pollution-related ailments. However, these instructions have not yet been implemented.
For over 300 days, residents of Ajitpura-Kujeta in the Kotputli-Behror district have been protesting against illegal limestone mining—involving blasting in excavated pits—conducted by National Limestone Company Pvt. Ltd. near residential areas. On May 29, the police forcibly removed their protest tents. When the residents gathered to submit a memorandum to resume their protest, armed individuals opened fire on them, leaving several villagers critically injured.
Hanuman Beniwal, the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) MP from Nagaur, held the BJP’s top leadership responsible for the flourishing mining mafia in the state. He stated, “These limestone mines were purchased 40 years ago and left idle. Now that their value has appreciated, goons are being brought in from Rajasthan and Gujarat to attack the local people.”
The brazenness of the mining mafia is evident. Last month, miscreants visited Shatru ki Dhani village and assaulted women who were participating in anti-mining protests. According to villager Om Prakash, “Six women were injured; one lost her teeth, and another suffered a broken arm.”
The Rajasthan Pollution Control Board has also shown apathy; it has not issued a single show-cause notice to the mining companies since 2008. In contrast, the Department of Mines and Geology imposed fines totaling over ₹63 lakh on 54 stone quarries in the Dhansura block of Gujarat’s Aravalli district after discovering serious irregularities in their mining leases. Irregularities were found across 12 parameters, and a fine of ₹10,000 was imposed for each violation at every site. This was the first such inspection since the lease was granted in 2014.
A departmental official acknowledges that minerals worth billions of rupees are being stolen. He states that had regular annual inspections been conducted as before, mine owners would have faced fines running into crores.
Violence by a brazen mining mafia has become commonplace at mining sites, and villagers are frequently falling victim to it. Many densely forested hills have been reduced to rubble. Rivers and their ecosystems have dried up, further deepening the water crisis in an area already facing a shortage.
The recent race among corporate companies to acquire vast tracts of land rich in minerals—such as copper, zinc, lead, iron ore, limestone, marble, gold, and silver—should be viewed in this context.
Sujata, of the Adivasi Jan Adhikar Ekta Manch, notes that the Vedanta Group operates some of the world’s largest underground mines and smelting complexes near Udaipur through its subsidiary, Hindustan Zinc.
The group operates the Zawar, Sindesar Khurd, Rajpura Dariba, and Kayad mines to extract zinc and iron ore. Sujata says, “Many of these are underground mines, which is why water sources have dried up.”
The Adani Group has recently commenced gold mining operations in the villages of Banswara, Ghatol, and Jalora. Sujata explains, “Mining for iron and copper has taken place in the villages of Farara. The notices received by tribals from the Forest Department could have serious consequences.”
A 2023 CAG report confirmed instances of illegal mining in 122 cases using remote sensing data and GIS techniques. Neelam Ahluwalia, founder of the “Peoples for Aravallis” group, says, “It is astonishing that the compensatory afforestation for the forests being felled in Nicobar is being carried out on 500 acres of land in Mahendragarh, Rajasthan!”
The Aravalli granite reserves are a particular target for the construction industry. Even though these areas…
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