Dy CM’s direction appreciable, violated the very first day!

On Thursday October 24th 2024 the newly appointed Deputy Chief Minister of J&K Mr Surinder Choudhary emphasised the need for a complete ban on illegal Riverbed Mining across J&K.

During his first review meeting at the civil secretariat Srinagar with the senior officers of the Geology & Mining Department which was attended by Commissioner Secretary Industries Department Mr Vikramjeet Singh as well, the Dy CM directed the officers to prioritise ecological concerns while allocating mineral blocks, ensuring preservation of flora and fauna and preventing contamination of water and other natural resources.

But within a few hours of this meeting an order was issued by the District Mineral Officer-DMO Budgam wherein he allotted a construction company to lift 5000 MTs of Nallah Muck from Sukhnag River in Beerwah Budgam against the payment of Rs 1.65 Lakhs for 20 days. It is understandable that the DMO cannot issue this order on his own unless he has no clear direction from his senior officers. Thus we can conclude that the Deputy Chief Minister’s direction was sidelined within a few hours of the meeting he held in the Civil Secretariat ? He needs to take it seriously.

Illegal Mining in Sukhnag

Like other rivers, nallah’s and streams, Sukhnag river in Beerwah Budgam is being vandalised for last more than 3 years by a construction company known as NKC Projects Pvt Ltd. This company was allotted the contract for construction of Srinagar Ring Road in 2020-2021. Initially NKC was extracting boulders, nallah muck and bajri from Shali Ganga stream at Panzan Budgam using heavy machinery like JCB & L&T cranes. The company had given an undertaking before J&K State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority -JKSEIAA that it wouldn’t use these machines and on that basis they were given Environmental Clearance-EC.

On the ground that EC was being violated and this author challenged that before the National Green Tribunal-NGT with facts like geotagged photos etc. This was proved to be authentic by the JK Pollution Control Committee also. The work was stayed by NGT finally. The company then went to extract the Riverbed Material -RBM from Sukhnag which is around 30 kms from Shali Gudsathoo Panzan where the company has set up their material warehouse and stone crushing units. For last 3 years NKC has been excavating the Riverbed Material -RBM from Sukhnag without any valid permission of environmental clearance. They only have obtained disposal permits from Irrigation, Flood Control Department, Geology and Mining Deptt on the orders of local District Magistrate. Under the garb of so-called Disposal Permits an open loot is taking place in Sukhnag and every day at least 100 dumpers of boulders, muck, sand and bajri are looted and brought to Panzan Gudsathoo warehouse. In addition to environmental loss this is a huge economic loss as mere Rs 1 to 2 crores have been paid as royalty while as loss is estimated to be more than Rs 500 crores. When this work was not stopped on my repeated requests I took up the matter with National Green Tribunal-NGT New Delhi by filing a formal petition through my counsel Advocate Saurabh Sharma.

On October 4th 2024 the NGT’s Principal Bench of Justice Prakash Srivastava (Chairperson), Justice A K Tyagi and Dr Senthil A Veil (Expert Member) heard my case and directed for the constitution of a committee that will look into the facts and submit the report in eight weeks before NGT. The committee members include Member Secretary Central Pollution Control Board-CPCB New Delhi, senior officers from Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change-MoEFCC , Jammu and Kashmir Pollution Control Committee and Director Fisheries JK Govt. The team will pay a visit to the site by Nov 15^th.

Sukhnag a Trout Fish Stream

Sukhnag is a designated Trout Fish stream which is looked after by the J & K Fisheries Department. The stream looks like a bombarded site especially near the mining sites. The employees of the Fisheries Deptt were scared to even stop the illegal mining work done by NKC company which according to them have official patronage. But the Department could have used Drones to check this illegal work and report the same to the Govt for records. They were all asleep and only woke up when NGT intervened and issued orders on October 4^th 2024.

As Director Fisheries J&K Govt is also part of the team constituted by NGT, he started activating his staff in Budgam. They went to Sukhang Nallah last week and stopped illegal work in Sail Beerwah for some days. But it was shocking to see DMO Budgam’s order No: DMO/ Bud/DGM/F-106-II/2849-2856 Dated 24.10.2014 granting permission to NKC company to mine nallah muck for 20 days issued on Oct 24^th 2024. This was issued soon after Dy CMs meeting on the same issue ? Already thousands of fish have died in Sukhnag in May this year in Sail village Beerwah when water supply was cut down by the mining mafia to a trout fish farm. Not even an FIR was registered against the culprits who are violating not only J&K Fisheries Act but also violate J&K Minor Mineral Concession Rules 2016, Water (P&C of Pollution ) Act 1974 and Sustainable Sand Mining Rules. Their actions are causing environmental disaster plus destroying the aquatic life especially the trout fish.

Conclusion

I also appeal to the Govt to explain how the projects like construction of Ring Road Srinagar were allotted when the project proponent was not provided a designated site to get Riverbed Material? Why are DPRs and EMPs silent on these things? Why should contractors and construction companies have to take illegal routes to get the construction material to execute Govt projects? These things need to be discussed, debated and streamlined by the Govt ?

Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat is an Acumen Fellow. He is Founder/ Chairman J&K RTI Movement