60 crushers operating in Haryana's no-mining area

Tribune News Service

Geetanjali Gayatri

Chandigarh, July 22

The Aravallis may be a no-mining zone, but it has not deterred mushrooming of stone crushers across Nuh district with as many as 60 concentrated in two zones of the district.

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Other stone crushers are spread in small clusters. All are functioning after securing due permission from the Mines and Geology Department.

In Jamalgarh on the Haryana-Rajasthan border, the Biwan Pahadi zone has 20 crushers, including the one belonging to former Gau Sewa Aayog chairman Bhani Ram Mangla.

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While the zone came up in 2010, Mangla’s crusher was given permission to operate only in 2013-14, said Haryana Mines Minister Mool Chand Sharma. “In this zone, all crushers are presently functional,” he added. However, Mangla, when asked about his crusher had said it had not been operational for the past two or three years.

 In the Rewasan zone, close to Sohna, of the 40 crushers, only 15 are functional. This is a zone that originally existed. Besides these, there is a cluster of crushers in Tauru as well while others are spread all over in similar clusters.

Asked how permission was given to these crushers when mining is banned in the Aravallis on the SC order, the minister said these crushers rely essentially on Rajasthan for supply of stones and material.

“Mining is not banned in Rajasthan. Alwar is a stone’s throw from Nuh. The Biwan Pahadi zone is just over two kilometres from the border, making it a preferred area. Just like the other crushers in the zone, Mangla’s crusher is almost 40 km from the Aravallis,” he said.

Explaining that taking stones from the Aravallis would increase the crusher owners’ cost manifold when they could procure raw material from Rajasthan at hardly any transportation cost, Sharma said mining in the Aravallis was the handiwork of locals who use the illegally mined stones for building their houses or undertaking construction locally.

Unlike Punjab, Uttarakhand and UP, which have granted access of their eRavaana portals to Haryana, Rajasthan has not given the access to Haryana despite repeated attempts by the state government. Notably, eRavaana portals allow the state to track the material from their respective mines right up to the end users.

Sources said this allows overloaded trucks to come from Rajasthan unchecked. “With no access to the portal, we only know from the receipt where the truck is coming from, but cannot check the quantity and other details from the portal,” an officer said.

Consequently, besides overloaded trucks getting in without checks there have been instances of fake eRavaana receipts produced by trucks carrying illegal mining material in the past.

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Mines Minister MC Sharma says these crushers rely mainly on Rajasthan for supply of stones

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