In Part I of this series, we showed you why a clear definition for the Aravallis matters, by taking you to the village of Deepawas in Rajasthan’s Sikar district, along the lively green banks of the clear Girjan river. In Part 2, we brought you what activists predict can happen to the Girjan if its fate flows along the same lines as that of the Kasawati river near Kotputli-Behror, just 20 kilometres away. And why implementing existing regulations and protection are important for the Aravallis here.Here, in Part 3, read about the health, social and economic worries that a small settlement in the Aravallis located in a mining and stone crushing belt is living through, and why any definition for the Aravallis has to be mindful of much.Nareda (Rajasthan): Pale porcelain fields of mustard and wheat wait, ready for harvest, on a cool, clear February evening. A few hundred metres behind them, the dark silhouettes of short, scraggly hills of the Aravallis line the horizon. At the foothills hangs a distinct, light grey, oddly linear blanket of mist. But the people who live here – in Chotiya Ki Dhani near Nareda village in northeast Rajasthan’s Kotputli-Behror district – know better.This is no mist. Forty-five year old Kausalya Meena’s eyes mist over.“We tried our best,” she says, as low booming blasts punctuate the constant whirs of three stone crushers, just about 300 metres away on three sides of the settlement. “But we couldn’t save him.”She hurriedly pulls her ghunghat over her face – she does not want her tears to be seen. This mist-like fine dust is what killed Kausalya’s husband, 48-year-old Laxmichand Meena, three months ago. Doctors said that he died of “TB” – tuberculosis – and “silicosis”, Kausalya says. Silicosis is not a word that comes easily to Kausalya, but she knows what it does. She has seen and felt its impacts for nine years as she tended to her husband’s worsening health: coughing, fatigue and weakness. Silicosis is a progressive lung disease, caused by inhaling silica – fine particles that are a common by-product in stone crushing. It has no cure. Silicosis can co-occur with TB, and mostly affects workers in the quarrying, manufacturing and construction industries. Laximchand Meena, however, was a farmer near whose home several stone crushing units sprung up.Health issues – though one of the most pressing – are not the only worry that people in this landscape of forests, hills, fields, mines and stone crushers are living through. Groundwater levels have plummeted. Agricultural productivity is dipping. In landscape already fissured by scarred hillslopes, unliveable villages and intangible losses, the new definition for the Aravallis recommended by the Union environment ministry (that only hills higher than 100 metres above local relief will count as the hill range) could aggravate these concerns, pushing people and the Aravallis to a point of no return, experts say.‘We are dying everyday’At Chotiya Ki Dhani, residents say they cannot breathe. They are surrounded on three sides by stone crushing units.Source: Google Maps, 2026. Chotiya Ki Dhani (27°44’35.9″N, 76°05’15.0″E) is marked in teal. The areas in grey around the settlement are stone mines and crushers.Windows and doors are jammed due to thick layers of dust. Forty-six-year-old Rajinder Kumar Meena, a small farmer, runs his hands on the window sill of his house and holds them out for me to see. “See? This is after wiping it clean everyday,” he says, frustration and anger writ large on his face.Rajinder Kumar Meena holds up his hands caked with dust after running his palm over his windowsill. Photo: Aathira Perinchery/The Wire.“We are dying everyday because of the dust and pollution,” says Mahinder Meena, another resident of Chotiya Ki Dhani. “The crushers operate even at night, and the air around becomes like a blanket of clouds.”The number of people who have wheezing coughs, asthma, breathing issues and skin allergies are increasing, Mahinder adds. “If they run even for 100 metres, they have to sit down, gasping.” He lists out the names of five people who doctors said died due to respiratory disorders including silicosis, over the last five years.“But doctors refuse to say this in the death certificate,” he says. “So the families of these people cannot claim compensation.”Economic and social impactsMedical bills are increasing, plunging many into debt. “We spent almost five lakhs on his treatment,” Kausalya, who lost her husband to silicosis, says. “We are in debt now.”This is no monochrome. This is what the ground in Chotiya Ki Dhani, Nareda, looks like: an eerie white-grey in color. The red/ dark brown in the centre is the actual colour of the soil, dug up by ants in a mustard field. Photo: Aathira Perinchery/The Wire.The groundwater level in their area has dipped: borewells that used to hit water at 200-300 feet now have to go past depths of 1,200 feet to hit any water at all, Mahinder adds. And so expenses mount: it costs anywhere between Rs 5-15 lakh to drill a borewell and get it working.Meanwhile, incomes from agriculture have reduced. Crop productivity has halved, these small farmers say, because of the layers of dust on the plants. They make only enough for their own consumption, with nothing left over to sell in the market. Access to grazing lands is also decreasing. The porcelain grey mustard fields of Chotiya Ki Dhani, Nareda, Rajasthan. Photo: Aathira Perinchery/ The Wire.“Look at that crusher,” Mahinder points to one operating about 300 metres away, across the state highway. “It is operating on gochar bhoomi.”Kausalya, who lost her husband to silicosis, says she has also lost three buffaloes and two goats over the past five years. “They eat more dust than grass,” she says.Social impacts of living in such a hostile environment are also emerging.“Men here are not getting brides, people do not want to send their daughters here,” Choti Devi, Rajinder’s aunt, says. “And why will they? Even the rotis we make are covered in dust. The water we drink is dusty. We find it so hard to breathe, there is a heaviness in our chests.”No one wants to send their daughters in marriage to the settlement because of the polluted air and water, say Lali Devi, Kamla Devi and Choti Devi, residents of Chotiya Ki Dhani. Photo: Aathira Perinchery/The Wire.Residents also say they are used to threats and intimidation.Mine and crusher operators have a team of gundas who threaten to hurt them if they go to the police, Rajinder alleges. He says that has been taken to the police station four times during the last five years, with cases being filed against him for raising concerns. This is no blur effect: Mahinder Meena closes his nose with his palm as he crosses State Highway 37B near his house. Photo: Aathira Perinchery/The Wire.“We have fought, we have protested. But they suppress protests,” Rajinder adds. “The sarpanch gives No Objection Certificates to the units without consulting us. The sarpanch also meets with mine and crushing unit company officials regularly. Whom do we approach?”Mahinder and Rajinder allege that they have complained to all authorities possible, but to no avail. “Over the years we have gone to the collector, and other authorities. We have even filed a petition in the NGT but we don’t have the money with our agricultural income, or the time to fight this,” Mahinder says. “We are very worried,” Rajinder says.Worried enough to mull shifting out of the settlement – their home for generations. People who have permanent jobs have already moved out of the village, he says. Relatives do not visit anymore; they are asking me to move out of here too, he rues. But that will mean selling their fields here, the only source of livelihood they have, Rajinder adds.Residents have informed the pollution control board too but nothing happens, Mahinder says. “Those officials who do try to enforce norms are moved out,” he alleges.‘No complaints, only compliance’, authorities say The Wire contacted the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board to follow up on the status of any complaints from Nareda.Rajkumar Sehra, Regional Officer with the Board for the district of Kotputli-Behror, says that the Board has not received any complaint from any resident in Nareda at all. The Board, in its guidelines, specifies that a stone crusher unit cannot be located within 1.5 km aerial distance from residential areas. When this reporter pointed out that stone crushing units are operating within 300-500 metres of the settlement of Chotiya Ki Dhani, the issue does not fall under his jurisdiction but the tehsildar’s, Sehra says. According to him, the tehsildar has to measure the distance between the operating units and houses and then inform the respective authorities. He insists that all crushing units in the area follow siting norms and that the pollution control board has verified complaints and taken action in cases of non-compliance, closing down units in the past. There are also cases taken up by the NGT in the area, he says. The collector of Kotputli-Behror, meanwhile, says that the pollution control board regularly measures air quality in the area, and that there have been no cases of deaths due to silicosis in the district in the past year. “Yes there are stone crushers of course and we keep them in regular control to ensure pollution limits are within limits,” says district collector Priyanka Goswami.A stone crusher at work, around 300 meters away from the settlement of Chotiya Ki Dhani, operating in what locals allege used to be grazing commons. Photo: Aathira Perinchery/The Wire.A new definition In this landscape which is already witnessing health, environmental and social impacts due to mining, there’s yet another worry looming on the horizon: the Union government’s push for a new, uniform definition of the Aravallis.On November 20 last year, the Supreme Court accepted a new definition of the Aravalli hill ranges that the Union environment ministry proposed: that only hills above 100 metres above “local relief” (including the landform’s slopes and adjacent areas) would be considered as the ‘Aravalli Hills and Ranges’. Local relief is defined as the difference in elevation between the highest and lowest points within a specific, limited area. But here’s the catch: local relief depends entirely on the area taken into consideration. A large area might have low local relief if it is a flat plateau, while a small area might have high local relief if it is a deep valley. The ministry’s recommendation to the Supreme Court did not specify what extent of area (at the level of a village, tehsil or district) would be taken into consideration to calculate local relief — leaving “local relief” extremely ambiguous and free for interpretation.For geological and other purposes we only use sea level as the geodetic reference point, and not local relief, geologist C.P. Rajendran said during his talk on February 26 at the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute at Nimli, Rajasthan.“This particular definition of the Aravallis based on local relief itself is questionable from a scientific point of view,” Rajendran said. A perusal of the November 20 judgment order shows that the intent of defining the Aravallis was to facilitate mining, added environmentalist Chetan Agarwal. The court’s acceptance of the definition recommended by the ministry came with lots of other concerns as well, including the fact that the committee appointed by the court to develop the new definition comprised only bureaucrats from different departments under the Union government. Environment policy researchers had flagged this as a concern to The Wire, reiterating that “bureaucrats cannot be experts”. Environmentalists, geologists and conservationists have said that this new definition will mean that around 90% of the Aravallis will be vulnerable to mining. An analysis by Down To Earth listed a more conservative estimate of 50% — but this is still a very large area, amounting to around 15,589 sq km (of the total 31,414 sq km analysed). Widespread protests began, especially in Rajasthan, in the month of December.Taking suo motu cognisance of these protests, the court on December 29 stayed its own November 20 order and directed that a new committee be formed to study and survey the Aravalli hill range. By March 16, the Supreme Court put together a new high-powered committee to look into the issue of a new definition for the Aravallis. The committee now also includes academicians. Government authorities, including this Committee, need to go on ground and see for themselves the impacts of existing mines that the Aravalli Sanrakshan Yatra revealed clearly, Neelam Ahluwalia who led the Yatra across districts in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi told The Wire.Defining a complex geological unit like the Aravallis based on a local surface view is illogical, reiterated ecohydrologist Jagdish Krishnaswamy.“The geological formation of the Aravallis extends below the ground for about 100 or more meters,” he told The Wire. “This huge amount of rocks and aquifers below ground need to be taken into account while defining the Aravallis, and this cannot be based only on elevation above the ground,” he cautioned.Moreover, apart from mining, threats to the hill range will also include real estate development in these areas and resulting impacts — more groundwater extraction, urbanisation and dust generation, Krishnaswamy added.White dust on green wheat stalks at Chotiya Ki Dhani, Nareda, Rajasthan. Photo: Aathira Perinchery/The Wire.However, it may not be feasible to entirely eliminate mining from the Aravallis because it is after all an important livelihood means in the region too, he noted. This is where regulated mining with strict compliance becomes crucial, as does creating alternate job opportunities and developing alternative construction materials, he added.‘We will fight’In villages bearing the brunt of dying rivers and scarred hillslopes, emotions are running high. In Chotiya Ki Dhani, there’s anger, frustration and helplessness because there is no let up for their terrible air days. And though it has come at huge costs, there is awareness — of what the resulting pollution is doing to their health. Unlike their fathers who worked in crusher units, the men here no longer do, Mahinder says.“We didn’t know of these health impacts before. Now we do,” he says. “We will do anything to get the authorities to listen to us.”In Deepawas, there’s fear but also hope – hope that the Supreme Court’s recent order citing the importance of the Aravallis and halting mining by Ojaswi, in the village and along the banks of the Girjan, will remain in force.There’s also quiet resilience.Thirty-year-old Shersingh Meena, a resident of Deepawas who makes ends meet by driving his truck, says he is ready to lay down his life for his land. “They can kill us but we will not give up our lands,” he says in a calm, measured tone as he warms his hands over a small wood fire in the compound of his house as dusk sets in. “This is our home.”In the background, a red-wattled lapwing calls from the ink-blue thorny wilderness of the Aravallis.