Mining within protected Beas zone, Wildlife Dept takes note

The Punjab Wildlife Department has taken cognisance of mining activity within 1-km radius of the Beas Conservation Reserve from Talwara to Harike. The issue surfaced after the state government announced the policy 'Jisda Khet, Usdi Ret' for flood-hit farmers in the border districts.

Officials in the Wildlife Department said it had emerged that after the policy allowed farmers to mine sand from their fields, they had started lifting silt from the areas that come within 1-km radius of the reserve also.

The Beas Conservation Reserve — a Ramsar site — is a protected zone where mining is prohibited. It covers an area of 6,428.9 hectares, encompassing a 185-km stretch of the Beas meandering through Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Tarn Taran. Recently, a case of illegal mining and violation of the Wildlife Act was registered by the police on the complaint of the Wildlife Department.

In the last month's special session of the Vidhan Sabha on flood relief and rehabilitation-related issues, ruling AAP had blamed the Congress for getting the Beas Conservation Reserve listed as a protected zone as it involved taking clearances from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for carrying out any type of mining activity.

As a result, no desilting could take place and it led to flooding of large tracts of land along the river, it had alleged. Post-floods, the state government has written to the Centre to denotify the reserve as a Ramsar site.

Earlier, former Zira MLA Kulbir Singh Zira had complained to the Forest Department, saying under the garb of the 'Jisda Khet, Usdi Ret' plan, illegal mining was being done within the prohibited area of the wildlife sanctuary.

Officials said in the past also, the Forest Department had asked the Water Resources Department to submit a conservation plan as per the laid-down procedure before seeking a no-objection certificate for mining in areas under the reserve. The Forest Department in the past had asked the Mining Department to stop alleged digging and excavation of rivers for sand mining activities in the garb of 'desilting' of rivers.