Dec 07, 2007
Threat to a pristine Nandhor valley
Apart from damaging the environment, the stone crushers will also take away the livelihood of the farming community of the uncorrupted Kumaon region
Rajshekhar Pant / Nainital
Three years ago, the pristine Chorgalia of Nandhor valley in Kumaon came in the news, for 3000 acres of its alluvial farm land was transformed into an industrial estate and the river there was tampered with in the name of flood control. And now comes the commissioning of stone crushers right at the centre of Gangapur villages with agricultural land all around, a calamity big enough to threaten the environment and the very existence and the means of livelihood of the people living around. At least eight of the villages and 450 acres of prime agricultural land and eight orchards will be adversely affected by the crushers. Around 10 to 12 acres of land each is reported to have been purchased for the proposed induction of crushers in the near future.
Permission for the stone crushing operations has been given by the Pollution Control Board keeping at bay all the norms and specifications laid down in the mining policy, according to Bahadur Sing Karki, president of Nyay Panchayat and Pradhan of Gangapur. The rule stipulates that schools, colleges, hospitals, shrines, highways, bridges, aqueducts or water-channels should not fall within the periphery of five hundred metres of the sites of a crusher. The joint inspection committee report prepared by a team of officials sent by the district authorities to douse the rising resentment among the villagers was doctored to oblige the crusher owners, allege the villagers. The pradhans of the neighbouring villages inform that at least five schools are there in the peripheral region of the stone crushers. They are also very close to church.
Kunwar Singh Mehra, an activist and representative of a neighbouring Ummedpur village claims that about a decade back permission to an entrepreneur keen to open a crusher was denied on the ground that qualitatively the stone available in the bed of Nandhor river was too soft to have any commercial utility. Isn't it like closing your eyes to the impending danger of silicosis when around sixty percent of the stones is bound to turn into fine dust when crushed, asks Mehra. It is amusing to note here that the sand available in the bed of Nandhor river is still not officially passed for construction purposes and even the locals don’t use it in private constructions because of its extremely poor quality. Incidentally, in pursuance of an ordinance promulgated on November 6 regarding the crushers, pulverisers and natural screening plants, these units will not be able to operate further close to the human habitation.
Yielding to the request of the representatives of the association of crusher owners, the CM is reported to have given a month’s grace period to the crusher owners though without compromising at the cost of the specifications already laid down, say the sources. With 40 stone crushers, 70 natural screening plants and 60 pulverisers in Kumaon region, the crusher lobby is indeed a force to reckon with here, says Karki.
“Questions related to environment may at times be vital for commoners like we people but not for our political masters. Nandhor valley at the foot of Shivalik range is one of the uncorrupted natural regions in Kumaon where much of the nature is still in its pristine state