The statement of the Cabinet minister Dinesh Agarwal on resumption of quarrying in the rivers of Haridwar has elicited a mixed reaction, leading to a wave of cheers among the miners and stone-crushers while some voices are being raised against it as well.
Clarifying the State Government's stance on the quarrying issue, the Forest minister said on Tuesday that the mining activities would soon resume in seven rivers flowing through Haridwar.
On the expected lines, the statement has triggered criticism from those who have been staging movement for a long time to stop mining activities altogether while it has brought cheer to operators of stone crushers.
Condemning the statement, the founder of Matri Sadan Ashram at Jagjeetpur Swami Shivanand said the minister's statement has proved his active association with the mining mafia. "He is actually their patron," he said.
Tearing further into the minister, the seer said he himself had a stone crusher in Shyampur which had come up flouting the forest norms on the banks of Ganga.
MlA from laksar, Sanjay Gupta said, "The State would suffer because of this wrong policy of the state government. Only manual picking should be allowed so that the poor residing in slums on the banks of Ganga earn some money through it to support their families. Desecrating Mother Ganga with JCB and other heavy machinery is condemnable."
The miners on the other hand, are happy though a little wary. A fear seems lurking in them that the permission for quarrying on riverbeds would be given for the places under the State-run corporations. Notably, Uttarakhand Forest Development Corporation (UFDC) and Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) are instrumental in allotting mining lots.
Speaking to The Pioneer, a private mining lot owner Manoj Jain said, "We welcome the decisive statement made by the minister, but a doubt persists in our minds whether private owners would be allowed to carry out the mining work. My quarrying lot is totally legal as we complied with all the formalities and pillar posting was done after proper measurement."
Sounding concerned over what is awaiting the trade, he said those who illegally encroach the forest area and dig beyond the permissible limits in the Ganga are never caught by the police. "No action is taken against the miscreants," he said, adding that quarrying must be conducted as per the laid- down regulations so that the government gets its share of the earned revenue.