Stone crushers and sand quarrying units in Nuapada district are violating basic environment and pollution norms. Most of them are operating without having any clearance from the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). Nor do they have sanction of the State Pollution Control Board (PCB).
Khariar tehsil has the highest number of such illegal units without having the clearance of the SEIAA and the PCB. Out of 23 stone crusher units running here, only one (Suchita Stone Crusher at Sargadi village) has obtained environment clearance. Boden tehsil has provided permission for mining in three stone quarries but none of them have obtained environment clearance or pollution certificate.
likewise, in Komna and Nuapada tehsils, there are two and three units respectively which are running openly by violating the environment and pollution guidelines. No one has been given lease for quarrying in Sinapali block but quarrying of stone is going on at three places with full knowledge of the local authority.
There are at least 18 sand quarries in the district who have not obtained environment clearance.
The district authority recently had directed the Tehsildars of Komna, Khariar and Nuapada to provide a list of leases having valid environment clearance and proposals forwarded to SEIAA. The Khariar Tehsildar, answering this query of the district authority, has confirmed that 22 proposals of auction sale and lease for the year 2014-15 were sent to Chairman, SEIAA for environment clearance which have been returned with observation that prefeasibility report of the project and mining plan approval of the authorised agency of the concerned State Government were required.
The leaseholders of the stone quarries while signing agreements with the Revenue department have agreed to the term that they would not undertake any mining/quarrying activities until the environment clearance is obtained from SEIAA. But, all of them have violated the agreement and materials worth crores of rupees have already been mined and sold.
“The materials are sold with permission from the Tehsildar and we are paying royalty to the Revenue department regularly. We have been issued permit books,” claimed the stone quarry operators.It is learnt that the Tehsildars in their respective tehsils have issued permit books to the crusher units for issue of transit permits for selling. The registers are periodically checked by the concerned Tehsildars to check illegal quarrying and selling.
“We are facing a lot of problems due to the quarrying operation. We have lodged complaint before the authority but no one pays any heed,” said the villagers of Khudpej of Kharir Tehsil who had opposed the quarrying of sand in river Sundar.“They take sand from our river indiscriminately beyond the area and depth assigned to them,” they alleged.