Aravalli Hills, critical minerals and the ‘strategic exemption’: Why India’s defence push has reignited an environmental fault line

On December 23, the defence establishment entered a long-simmering environmental controversy. Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit, Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff, warned that India’s growing dependence on imported critical minerals posed a strategic vulnerability, tying defence readiness and self-reliance directly to secure mineral value chains. His remarks came amid a charged debate over how the Aravalli Hills should be protected — and whether parts of this ecologically fragile landscape should be opened up for mining deemed “strategic”. The convergence of national security, climate commitments and environmental law has turned the Aravalli question into a test case for India’s development priorities.

What triggered the renewed Aravalli Hills controversy?

The immediate trigger was a November 20 order of the Supreme Court of India, which sought to impose uniformity on how the Aravalli landscape is identified for mining regulation. The Court adopted a new operational definition of “Aravalli Hills” and “Aravalli Range”, froze new mining leases until a sustainable mining plan is prepared by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and prohibited mining in “core” or “inviolate” areas.

Crucially, however, the Court carved out an exception: mining could still be permitted for critical, strategic and atomic minerals notified under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957. This carve-out — described as a “strategic exemption” — has since become the focal point of contention.

How the new definition reshaped the Aravalli landscape

Under the Court’s mining-focused definition, an “Aravalli Hill” is any landform in designated Aravalli districts that rises at least 100 metres above the local relief, measured from the lowest encircling contour line. An “Aravalli Range” consists of two or more such hills within 500 metres of each other, including the landforms between them.

Environmental groups argue that this approach fragments a continuous ecological system into isolated “islands” of legally recognised hills, surrounded by valleys, scrublands and forests that are excluded despite being ecologically integral. These interstitial areas enable groundwater recharge, biodiversity movement and dust control — functions that cannot be separated neatly by elevation thresholds. Amid growing criticism, the Supreme Court last week placed this definition in abeyance and decided to constitute a fresh committee to re-examine the issue.

Why ‘strategic exemption’ has become so contentious

The exemption for strategic minerals has raised alarms because it operates within an already diluted environmental regulatory framework. Over the years, the Environment Ministry has increasingly relied on executive discretion — office memoranda, project-specific relaxations and ad hoc appraisals — to fast-track projects framed as matters of national interest.

India’s environmental impact assessment regime allows exemptions from public consultation for projects linked to security and “strategic considerations” as determined by the Central Government. The absence of binding criteria for what qualifies as “strategic” has made this category opaque and elastic, leaving room for misuse. Critics argue that invoking defence or critical mineral needs often becomes a shortcut to bypass scrutiny, rather than a narrowly tailored exception.

How courts and policy changes have reshaped the clearance regime

Since 2014, successive regulatory changes have reduced friction for industrial and mining projects. Two developments in 2025 stand out. In May, the Supreme Court ruled that ex post facto environmental clearances were “anathema” to environmental law because they legitimised damage after it had occurred. Yet in November, the Court recalled this judgment, reopening space for post-facto regularisation and introducing uncertainty into what was earlier a clearer prohibition.

In September, the Environment Ministry issued an office memorandum exempting mining projects involving critical minerals from public hearings under the EIA Notification, 2006, invoking the “strategic considerations” clause. Parliamentary defence of this move rested squarely on national security arguments, even as it narrowed avenues for community and expert scrutiny.

Parallelly, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 widened exemptions by redefining what counts as forest land requiring clearance and expanding categories of activities not treated as “non-forest use”. While mining is not exempt outright, exploration and enabling infrastructure — roads, power lines, drilling for samples — can now proceed more easily, especially in forested and mineral-rich districts.

Why the Aravallis matter beyond mining economics

The Aravalli Hills are not just mineral-bearing formations; they are a critical ecological buffer. The Supreme Court itself has acknowledged their role in groundwater recharge, desertification control and climate regulation. These ecosystem services are directly linked to India’s commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals — from clean air and water security to sustainable cities.

At the same time, parts of the Aravallis are believed to host minerals of strategic interest: base metals, tungsten, bulk construction materials, and potentially lithium and rare-earth elements vital for defence systems and the green energy transition. This overlap of ecological fragility and strategic value makes governance choices especially consequential.

The larger policy dilemma India now faces

The Aravalli debate exposes a deeper governance gap: India lacks a transparent framework to arbitrate conflicts between climate action, environmental protection and strategic industrial demand. Instead of clear rules, decisions often emerge through negotiated exemptions and post-hoc regularisation, leaving environmental law to absorb political pressure.

If “strategic necessity” is to justify exceptions in sensitive landscapes, experts argue that the government or courts must define binding tests for such claims, mandate landscape-level cumulative impact and groundwater assessments, and place in the public domain the alternatives considered — imports, substitution, recycling or sourcing from less fragile regions. Without this clarity, the collision between defence-driven mineral demand and ecological protection will continue to be resolved case by case, weakening both climate credibility and regulatory certainty.