Last Updated on January 3, 2022 at 10:48 am
In the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir illegal mining is going on unabated and to steps to curb illegal mining activities is just confined to papers.
Division Bench of the High Court has issued directions many a times for keeping a check on illegal mining activities and to ensure that lessees who have been allotted blocks by the Geology and Mining Department restrict their activities to the earmarked area only.
But the ground reality is something else as Geology and Mining Department allegedly doesn’t have enough manpower and concerned officials doesn’t take strict action over the illegal mining or just pass direction to the field spot to visit the area to check as per Daily Excelsior.
The safety conditions imposed by Environment Impact Assessment Authority in order to protect the local ecology such as digging up to fixed limit and avoiding of JCBs and other heavy machinery are being violated by majority of lessees due to lackadaisical attitude on the part of the Geology and Mining Department.
District Mineral Officer has to keep a check on the replenishment of the mined out areas, traffic management, levels of production, river bank erosion, exit point of the site and giving directions to the project proponent for checking on the measures for mitigating the environmental concerns. But due to shortage of manpower these conditions are rarely checked by the project proponents and Geology and Mining Department.
The mining activities near the Food Craft Institute at Nagrota has created a severe danger to the building constructed at a cost of Rs 2.50 crore as the lessee has created deep trenches beyond the permissible limits.
Director Geology and Mining Department O P Bhagat told Excelsior that they are trying every possible way to act on the complaints like the one about the mining near the Food Craft Institute at Nagrota but for want of adequate staff it is not possible to maintain a regular check and are trying to evolve scientific methods to check these activities and hopefully some measures would be soon.
