Redrawing the Aravallis, redrawing risk

The Aravallis look like geology, but in North India they increasingly behave like a legal category.

- TDG NETWORK

Whether a ridge is treated as a “hill,” a “range,” a “forest,” or simply “revenue land” decides what can be mined, what can be built, and what must be restored. That is why a recent attempt to redraw the Aravallis—through a uniform legal definition—has triggered ecological anxiety well beyond environmental circles.

On November 20, 2025, the Supreme Court adopted a definition that ties the Aravalli label to measurable terrain thresholds: an “Aravalli Hill” is a landform rising at least 100 metres above the local relief, and an “Aravalli Range” is a cluster of two or more such hills within 500 metres of each other. Supporters read this as administrative clarity; critics see it as a narrowing move that could exclude large stretches of the landscape that function ecologically as Aravallis but do not meet the height test.