New Delhi: The Union environment ministry in an affidavit agreed to a ten-member high-powered committee that the Supreme Court has tasked with coming up with a uniform definition for the Aravallis hill range, according to a report by PTI. The committee comprises retired and serving officials of different government departments including the Forest Survey of India (FSI) and Geological Survey of India (GSI). Some academicians are also part of the committee.The apex court put together this new committee after it stayed its own order in December following widespread protests about a uniform new definition – recommended by the environment ministry – that the court had accepted on November 30. Conservationists, activists and citizens had raised concerns that this new definition (that only hills above 100 meters elevation from the local relief would qualify as an Aravalli hill) would open up more areas within the hill range to mining and other destructive human activities. On February 26, the court had asked the environment ministry and other stakeholders to suggest names of domain experts for the panel which would define the Aravalli hills and ranges.The new committee will be headed by Kanchan Devi, the current director general of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education. Other members of the committee, per the PTI report, include Subhash Ashutosh, former director general of FSI; former GSI director Rajendra Kumar Sharma; climate and energy policy expert Tejal Kanitkar who is currently an associate professor at the Mumbai-based Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research; life sciences scientist Jaya Parkash Yadav; Tejbir Singh Rana, professor of geography at Shivaji College, University of Delhi; former additional surveyor general of India S.V. Singh; former Gujarat principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) C.N. Pandey, and former Nagaland PCCF Dharmendra Prakash.Per the PTI report, the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee (CEC) also recommended the names of author R.N. Mishra, and Vijay Dhasmana, an ecological restoration practitioner who has worked in the Aravallis landscape; however it is unclear if they are part of the final committee too.“The MoEFCC respectfully submits that it has no objection if this court as the aforesaid suggested names for the constitution of the proposed High Powered Committee. It is further submitted that the Ministry does not have any additional names to propose at this stage for inclusion in the said committee,” the PTI report quoted the affidavit submitted by the Ministry to the court as saying.