Pending environmental clearance, outside minning contractors start charging local sand diggers

Srinagar, August 9 (KNS): Throwing all the norms to wind, the outside contractors who bagged mining rights in Kashmir of stretches of riverbeds for mineral extraction have started operating as a mining Mafia on the pattern of other states of India despite environmental clearance pending to them. They are

Informed sources told KNS that outside companies who bagged mineral extraction contracts have started charging huge amount from traditional local sand diggers for sand extraction even without getting the environmental clearance from the Government.

“A few locals in league with Punjab based businessmen who have bagged mining rights are collecting Hafta from poor sand diggers illegally. They seem to have been given free hand by some quarters to carry on illegal mining,” local sand diggers in Panctachowk area told KNS.

An environmentalist told KNS that the environmental consequences of such mining can be serious.

“These can include increased flooding as miners cart away the sand holding back river waters. Indiscriminate and unregulated sand-mining causes erosion of the river bank and damages biodiversity,” he said.

But instead of stopping that, on July 30 the government ordered “fast-tracking of environmental clearance”.

In the month of June, the government’s body Jammu and Kashmir Expert Appraisal Committee (JKEAC) exposed ongoing illegal riverbed mining in J&K. Following the expose, the Jammu and Kashmir Environment Impact Assessment Authority (JKEIAA) which is also a Government body sought immediate steps to stop illegal mining.

Unnerved by the alarm of JKEAC body, the government ordered for speeding up the environmental clearances to these mining extraction contracts.

JKEAC is an eight-member group of experts set up by the central government in consultation with the regional government. It assists the three-member JKEIAA set up directly by the central government. Both were set up in August last year.

It was reported that JKEAC has either rejected environmental clearance for 80 riverbed mining plans (and 40 brick kilns) or asked for more information after their auction, “There is a lot of pressure from some quarters to grant environmental clearances to such projects.”(KNS) 

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