At Basai Meo, a village in Nuh district, two dirt roads snake across more than two kilometres from Haryana to Rajasthan. But they aren’t meant for villagers.

They are designed instead for mining trucks ferrying stone extracted from the ecologically sensitive Aravalli region. One leads southeast to Chapra, a Rajasthan village notorious for its mining leases; the other northeast toward Nangal, another mining hotspot in Rajasthan under scrutiny. Together, they form a hidden artery for illegal gravel, bypassing checkpoints and connecting to the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway.

They didn’t just appear overnight. 

In fact, they were bulldozed into existence despite objections from the Haryana forest department and resistance from villagers. When Newslaundry visited the spot, forest officials confirmed that both routes violate conservation laws, slicing through protected land governed by the Punjab Land Preservation Act. Yet they were built, during the middle of a sensitive land consolidation (chakbandi) process in Basai Meo in October last year – without public notification, compensation, or legal sanction.

Each road follows a similar pattern: the first kilometre runs through farmland; the next stretch carves through forest land. Both routes were blocked by the Rajasthan government two kilometres in amid a crackdown on illegal mining this month, but the patch that remains is still enough to be used daily by trucks.