New Delhi: The Forest Survey of India (FSI) on Tuesday categorically denied media reports suggesting that it had conducted a study showing that nearly 90% of the Aravalli hills would be left unprotected following a recent Supreme Court judgment.
In two separate posts on social media platform X, the FSI said it had not carried out any study concluding that “90% of the hills in Aravalli would be left unprotected” after the Supreme Court’s November 20, 2025 order. It also refuted claims that it had stated that “only 9% of the Aravalli range lies above 100 metres”.
The clarification comes amid an ongoing debate triggered by a report published by The Indian Express on November 27, which cited internal FSI documents and unnamed officials from the Union Environment Ministry.
According to that report, only 1,048 out of 12,081 Aravalli hill formations, each 20 metres or higher and spread across 15 districts of Rajasthan are above 100 metres in height. This would translate to roughly 8.7% of the Aravalli landscape in Rajasthan qualifying for protection under the height-based definition emerging from the Supreme Court judgment.
Rajasthan accounts for the largest share of the Aravalli range, which extends nearly 700 km from Gujarat to Delhi and is considered one of the oldest mountain systems in the world.
The Indian Express report had quoted a senior environment ministry official as saying that FSI had internally cautioned that the 100-metre cut-off could leave vast stretches of lower hill systems vulnerable. “It would protect only a few guard posts while surrendering the fences below,” the official was quoted as saying, warning of serious “ecological consequences”.
Experts and officials have long argued that the lower Aravalli hills play a critical role in blocking desertification, stabilising soil, recharging groundwater, and acting as a natural barrier against sand and dust storms from the Thar desert.
Environmentalists warned that degradation of these lower hill formations could accelerate the movement of sand and particulate matter into the Indo-Gangetic plains, worsening air quality and dust pollution across Rajasthan, Haryana, and the Delhi-NCR region, already among the most polluted regions globally.
Scientific studies have repeatedly highlighted the Aravallis’ role in influencing local rainfall patterns, preventing soil erosion, and sustaining agriculture in semi-arid regions. The range also supports diverse ecosystems, including dry deciduous forests and wildlife corridors for species such as leopards, hyenas, and jackals.
The loss of legal protection for large parts of the range could also open the door to mining, real estate development, and infrastructure expansion, activities that have historically fragmented the Aravallis despite multiple court orders and conservation directives.
Public health experts also caution that increased dust transport could aggravate respiratory diseases, particularly in urban centres like Delhi, Gurugram, and Faridabad, where particulate pollution is already linked to thousands of premature deaths annually.
While the FSI has denied carrying out or releasing any such study publicly, the episode has raised broader questions about how ecological features are defined for legal protection, and whether height-based criteria alone are sufficient to safeguard fragile landscapes like the Aravallis.
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