Jammu
Open violation of rules! Is the Rajouri administration hand in glove with illegal stone crusher owners?
Open violation of rules! Is the Rajouri administration hand in glove with illegal stone crusher owners?
POONCH TODAY NEWS
RAJOURI: A number of illegal stone crushers are running in district Rajouri in open violation of environmental rules and PCB guidelines, but it’s shocking that the district administration never took action against all of them. Highly placed sources in the Rajouri administration told “POONCH TODAY” that a number of illegal stone crushers have internal settings with police and civil administration, and this hidden exercise has been going on for a long time; as a result, not a single action has been taken against illegal stone crushers. 
Earlier, an action was taken against two stone crushers by NGT in 2022 for open violation of various rules. Other than this, the district administration never collected the guts to take action against them. A large number of crushers are operating near the national highway and water bodies. Some are operating adjacent to habitations, thereby causing huge inconvenience to the people from air pollution. Locals of nearby villages, while talking to “POONCH TODAY,” said that open digging of bore wells to fetch groundwater has become a common scene by crusher owners in addition to open violation of environmental rules. They said that due to the number of illegal stone crushers that are operating without any fear of law, agricultural activities have suffered a lot. Moreover, brazen noise emanating from crushers also creates noise pollution for the residents who are living near the site of the crushers. A number of crushers never followed the guidelines of the State Pollution Board for years. An impression has been generated in the Rajouri district that the administration lacks the guts to take on illegal stone crushers because some officers who always remain hand in glove with stone crusher owners have turned their backs towards illegal stone crushers because they used to receive their share regularly. At a number of places, the water table in the district has decreased due to illegal mining activities by crushers. A prominent political leader who has an indirect partnership with a crusher in the Rajouri district, pleading anonymity, said, “All are hand in glove. It’s a routine exercise to grease the palms of concerned officers of the administration regularly, and if any of the crushers stops that, then the owner is liable to face action from the administration. A former DC was an expert in earning illegal money from Crushers openly.” He further said that 90% of crushers are running in the Rajouri district in open violation of rules, but it’s a big question mark on the district administration, which has maintained a criminal silence on the issue. On the one hand, the illegal stone crushers are running freely in open violation of rules and without any fear of law due to the hand-in-glove acts of the crushers’ owners with some officials of police and civil administration for years, but on the other hand, it’s the common man who is suffering a lot on account of various environmental effects from crushers, which leads to the emergence of various airborne and waterborne diseases. It’s high time for the J&K government to intervene and take action against illegal stone crushers that are running freely, reportedly with the hand-in-glove acts of the Rajouri administration.
