The proposed limestone mining project in Jaisalmer has moved only through the terms-of-reference stage, but its location has already exposed a larger weakness in environmental governance: mitigation measures can be listed on paper long before there is evidence that similar safeguards are working at existing sites. The project is spread across more than 400 hectares in Joga village, includes a stone-crushing unit and lies 5.8 km from a designated Great Indian Bustard priority area.
The Union environment ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee recommended the grant of terms of reference for the project at a meeting on September 10. A terms-of-reference document sets the scope, methodology, objectives and reporting requirements for the environmental impact assessment. It is not the final environmental clearance. The next stages therefore matter because the project’s environmental case will be developed through the assessment and the conditions attached to any later decision.
The proposed mine is designed for limestone production of one million tonnes per annum. Its stone crusher would have a capacity of 1,500 tonnes per hour, according to the minutes of the EAC meeting. Those figures establish the industrial scale of the proposal, while the project’s proximity to a Great Indian Bustard priority area places it within a landscape where habitat protection and disturbance control are central to the approval process.
Great Indian Bustard priority areas are designated crucial habitats that function as retreats and breeding grounds for the critically endangered bird. The species has become a recurring test for the way India balances infrastructure, energy, mining and industrial development with protection of fragile habitats. In this case, the issue is not simply whether the project is near a priority area. It is whether the proposed safeguards can be assessed, monitored and enforced in a way that addresses both direct disturbance and the cumulative consequences of industrial activity.
UltraTech Cement Limited has proposed several mitigation measures for the project. These include suppressing dust through water sprinkling, installing bag filters at the stone-crushing site and minimising disturbance in adjoining areas. Such measures address visible sources of pollution and operational disturbance. However, their effectiveness depends on implementation, monitoring and compliance after construction and production begin. The supplied project information does not establish whether these measures have been independently tested at the proposed site or how their performance would be reported over time.
That question becomes more important because the company has faced regulatory findings at another Rajasthan mining operation. At its limestone mining site covering more than 500 hectares in Jodhpura-Mohanpura village in the Kotputli-Behror district, UltraTech was accused of failing to implement similar measures to protect the environment and local residents. In November 2025, the Central Zone Bench of the National Green Tribunal held the company responsible for environmental damage and health hazards in the village.
The NGT ordered the company to stop blasting operations at night, cover the stone-crushing area with tarpaulin, spray water on approach roads and use bag filters, vacuum suction hoods and dry fogging systems for pollution mitigation. These directions are significant for the Jaisalmer proposal because they show the difference between mitigation as a project commitment and mitigation as an enforceable operating requirement. The company’s response to the allegations regarding the earlier site was awaited in the supplied report.
The Jaisalmer project’s approval process will therefore have to carry more than a list of technical controls. It will need to establish how dust suppression will be verified, how crushing-related emissions will be measured, how blasting and transport activity will be controlled, and how disturbance in adjoining habitat will be monitored. The supplied EAC details identify some proposed measures but do not provide a compliance record, monitoring baseline or enforcement mechanism for the new project.
This is the institutional significance of the ToR stage. The environmental impact assessment is the point at which a project’s risks, alternatives, baseline conditions and mitigation requirements are formally defined. If the assessment is narrow, later approvals may also be built around incomplete information. If the assessment specifies measurable conditions and transparent reporting, regulators have a stronger basis for deciding whether the project can proceed and whether its operations remain within approved limits.
The proximity of the proposed mine to a Great Indian Bustard priority area makes the quality of that assessment especially important. A distance of 5.8 km is a specific geographic relationship, but distance alone does not establish the full impact of a project. The scale of extraction, the movement of vehicles, crushing operations, blasting, dust, noise and activity in adjoining areas all form part of the operational footprint. The information supplied confirms the project’s location and capacity but does not establish the likely impact on the bird population or the adequacy of the proposed mitigation.
The episode also shows why environmental compliance cannot be treated as a one-time clearance exercise. A project may pass from terms of reference to impact assessment, appraisal and eventual approval, while actual environmental performance is determined later through day-to-day operations. The NGT’s directions at the Kotputli-Behror site demonstrate that controls such as tarpaulin covering, road sprinkling, bag filters and limits on night blasting require continuing supervision. Their presence in a project document does not by itself demonstrate compliance.
Jairam Ramesh, a former environment minister and senior Congress leader, described the Great Indian Bustard as “most critically endangered” and said it needed “proactive protection, not projects that threaten it even more”. His remarks followed the EAC recommendation and focused public attention on the project’s proximity to the priority area. They are political comments, not an official finding on the Jaisalmer proposal, but they highlight the central policy tension: whether protection is designed before industrial activity begins or imposed only after damage and local complaints emerge.
The project’s present status also needs to be kept clear. The EAC recommendation for terms of reference means the environmental impact assessment process can proceed. It does not, on the facts supplied, amount to a final project approval or an operating authorisation. The decisive evidence will emerge through the assessment, the appraisal record, the conditions imposed by the authorities and the compliance data generated if the project advances.
For residents and local ecosystems, the practical question is how those safeguards will be experienced on the ground. Dust suppression must work on approach roads rather than exist only as a written commitment. Crushing controls must function during production. Restrictions on blasting must be observed. Disturbance in adjoining areas must be monitored. The earlier NGT case provides a documented reminder that these details are not peripheral to environmental governance; they are the point at which regulatory promises become real-world protections.
The Jaisalmer proposal therefore represents a test of whether India’s project-clearance system can learn from existing compliance failures before approving another large industrial operation. The supplied evidence establishes the project’s scale, its proximity to a Great Indian Bustard priority area, the mitigation measures proposed by UltraTech and the NGT’s earlier directions at another company site. It does not yet establish whether the new project will damage the bird’s habitat or whether its proposed safeguards will succeed. Those questions should be answered through the environmental impact assessment, subsequent appraisal and publicly verifiable compliance during operations.
