Brick-kiln owners oppose environmental clearances

Tribune News Service

Jhajjar, July 26

The brick-kiln owners are up in arms against making the environmental clearance certificate compulsory for running their manufacturing units. They said many state governments had exempted the brick-kilns from the certificate, but the Centre had been mounting pressure on them to make it mandatory in their states.

“A large number of brick-kiln owners from Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal will stage a dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on July 27 to register their protest against it,” said Satpal Deshwal, executive member of the All-India Brick Tiles Manufacture Federation.

He maintained the federation members would also submit a memorandum to Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar to seek exemption from the environmental clearance.

“Since we are not causing any harm to the environment by manufacturing bricks and tiles, there is no need to clamp the condition of obtaining environmental clearance. Moreover, the process will not only enhance the cost, but also promote corruption, as it is not easy to obtain clearance from the authorities,” Deshwal said.

Sources said the state government had exempted the brick-kilns from obtaining environment clearance by framing a policy in January, 2013. The policy states the kiln owners can carry out mining of sand up to 1.5 meter for the purpose of brick production.

Deshwal said though the state government had so far not been issued any such directives in view of a petition pending before the Supreme Court in this regard, governments of many other states were working on making the environmental clearance mandatory for brick-kilns.