Ropar: Stone crusher, screening plant owners go on indefinite strike

Ropar, October 6

Stone crusher and screening plant operators protesting against the new crusher policy have announced to shut down their units for an indefinite period.

Members of the Ropar Crushers’ Union, who held a meeting at Maharaja Ranjit Singh Park, claimed that five of the 30 conditions in the new policy were unjustifiable and declared that they would stop the work in their units for an indefinite period from today.

Union Secretary Sarabjit Singh said they would not even provide any vehicle for mining purposes, whenever it commences in the district.

MEET TO RESOLVE ISSUES SOON

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This is a policy matter. A meeting will be arranged between the crusher owners and the Mining Department SE to sort out the issues. — Dr Preeti Yadav, Ropar DC

He said it had been made mandatory for the owners to install a weighing bridge at their units spending nearly Rs 15 lakh despite the fact that the material would also be weighed at the pit head and the quantity of processed material would be matched with the consumption of power based on the statistical formula, which is 3 kW of power consumed for every 1 MT of production.

“According to the new policy, the crusher owners are required to deposit Rs 5 lakh security amount even as they purchase the material from the mining contractor and not the government. Besides, Re 1 per cubic foot of the Environmental Management Fund on the output of material and the increase of registration fee from Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh annually will put a huge burden financial burden on the crusher owners,” he added.

The owners have already met Mining Minister Harjot Singh Bains and department’s principal secretary Krishan Kumar, but to no avail. Moreover, the district administration had failed to arrange their meeting with the Chief Minister, following which they had decided to go on an indefinite strike, said Sarabjit added.