Admn had flagged illegalities at quarry

Arun Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ropar, June 21

This is not the first time when the Baihara sand quarry in the district is in news over illegal mining. The mining operations were banned here after the contractor was found flouting norms.

In October last year, residents of Baihara village, accompanied by RTI activist Dinesh Chadha, had lodged a complaint with Ropar Deputy Commissioner Gurneet Tej alleging that the contractor was digging the riverbed using heavy machinery. As per norms, he was supposed to extract mining minerals with manual implements.

A team of the administrative officials and the Mining Department, during a visit to the site on November 8, had found that the riverbed was dug up to 18 ft against the permissible limit of 10 ft.

Following this, the DC wrote to the PPCB to take action and to the Mining Department, recommending cancellation of the contract. Subsequently, the action was taken by both the board as well as the department.

However, the mining officials failed to take any action against the contractors of two other quarries even after officials found the river bed dug up to 40 ft.

On February 8, two teams led by Additional Deputy Commissioner Lakhmir Singh and Chamkaur Sahib SDM Ruhi Dugg visited the operational quarries of Swarha and Harsa Bela villages, respectively. It was found that not only the riverbed was dug more than 40-ft deep, the area beyond the quarry too was dug up.

Mining in these quarries stopped in April only when the auction of all the quarries in the district, barring Harsa Bela, was cancelled after the Cabinet decided to adopt progressive bidding process against reverse bidding process, following the SC order.