Stone crushers continue to pollute rivers

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, April 30

Many stone crushers are polluting local rivulets and the Beas, which are a major source of drinking water in Kangra, despite the directions of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to the state government to shut all those functioning within 100 m of water bodies.

Residents complain

• Residents of Thural, Jaisinghpur, Kanghain and Alampur expressed concern over pollution in water bodies and illegal sand mining with heavy machines being operated in local rivers and rivulets by some influential people of the area
• The NGT had ruled that a stone crusher set up within 100 m of a rivulet would be in violation of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
• RK Nadda, Executive Engineer, HP State Pollution Control Board, said that the HP High Court had already relaxed the condition

The NGT had ruled that a stone crusher set up within 100 m of a rivulet would be illegal and in violation of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which aims to protect the ecology of water bodies. Several stone crushers in Jaisinghpur and Thural are functioning on the banks of rivers and rivulets and their effluents are polluting these water bodies. The NGT had also called for a fresh exercise to re-assess the distance of these stone crushers.

RK Nadda, Executive Engineer, HP State Pollution Control Board, says that the HP High Court had already relaxed the condition of 100-m distance in many cases, status quo was restored and stone crushers were allowed to continue operations at their old locations. He adds a PCB team regularly inspects the stone crushers and issues them directions to rectify anomalies.

In many cases, he says heavy penalties have been imposed on the violators.

Residents of Thural, Jaisinghpur, Kanghain and Alampur express concern over pollution in water bodies and illegal sand mining with heavy machines such as JCBs and Poklane in local rivers and rivulets by some influential people of the area.

Deep trenches dug by miners to extract sand and stones became life threatening for animals and human beings during the rainy season when these are full of water.

Locals accuse state agencies of being hand in glove with sand miners and allow them to carry out sand extraction at various spots day and night. Illegal sand extraction has made the area vulnerable to floods due to the weakening of the river embankments. Besides, the water level in the rivulets has also gone down. Similarly, the chance of flood in the Beas basin has also increased and environmental experts attribute this phenomenon to the shrinking and loss of wetlands.