Drugs, illegal mining plague Nurpur Bedi

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Plata (Ropar), January 20

The rant by Opposition parties in poll-bound Punjab — “Reta aukha milda hai, nasha saukha” (It is easier to get drugs than sand) — could find no better representation than in Plata village.

The village grapples with politically backed mining mafia, which has levelled lower Shivalik fells, and drug menace alike. No wonder that residents of Plata and several other villages in Nurpur Bedi block of the Ropar Assembly constituency have made illegal mining and drug menace as the poll plank.

Ram Singh, a farmer of Abiana Kalan village, says minor minerals extracted from their land are filling the coffers of the rich and the powerful, while unemployed youths are falling prey to drugs.

“Saare rall ke kamm karde ne... reta bajri da. Sarkar koi banave, kamm Akali te Congressi mil ke karde ne (Akalis and Congress men work are together involved in illegal mining, no matter who forms the government),” he says.

On a visit to the area, a changed topography stares us in our face. As a long trail of tractors and trolleys laden with the sand, gravel and aggregate make their way through what used to be roads (severely damaged because of their inability to bear the heavy flow of traffic), a cloud of dust seems to be perpetually hanging in the air.

Rakesh Kumar, a Registered Medical Practitioner in Plata, says that almost all people in the village suffer from lung ailments arising out of continuous extraction of sand and gravel from the hills.

His friend, Chet Ram, reminisces about the times when the area once had hills, which have been levelled out in 10 years. “To add to our problems, mining contractors do not employ locals. As there is no other industry, many of them fall prey to prescription drugs, easily available at drug stores,” he says.

Villagers tell us stories of their children getting killed or injured by trucks and trolleys. Some fall into pits dug up outside Plata and Kheda Kamlot. Geeta Kumari, a contractual labourer, breaks down remembering her 12-year-old son, who was crushed to death under a trolley.

As we move further into the forest land, we find earth excavators drilling out sand and gravel. Notwithstanding notices issued to contractors by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2012, it’s work as usual. Truck after truck gets filled with minerals and leaves the mining site, but not before each truck driver is stopped at a barricade and made to pay “royalty” — what in common parlance is called “goonda tax”.

Just three kms from Plata, police have put up barricades. But they seem to be checking only illegal cash or liquor, as each truck — almost 500 a day, as per residents — are allowed to pass by unchecked. Each truck is sold for Rs 2,200 per 500 cubic feet (the capacity of a truck). This is more than the number of trucks that carry sand and gravel from legally auctioned quarries in Ropar.

In election time, people of Nurpur Bedi are hoping for a solution. It’s another story that they would rather want the government to legally auction off quarries in this ecologically fragile zone so they, too, can get the spoils of environment plundering.