Despite claims, illegal mining goes on in Himachal's Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh belt

Tribune News Service

Ambika Sharma

Solan, July 27

Various flip-flops on policies to check illegal mining have failed to achieve any tangible result in curbing illegal mining in the bordering industrial belt of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh.

As many as 39 officials were empowered to check illegal mining as per a notification issued in April 2011. They included officials of the Industries Department, DCs, police officials, the staff of revenue, forest, PWD, Jal Shakti departments as well as Block Development Officers. Most of them failed to curb the illegal activity.

239 cases detected this year

As many as 239 cases have been detected this year in the BBN belt where penalty worth Rs 41,82,500 has been realised. —Navdeep Singh, DSP, Baddi

vehicles evade cctv cameras

How vehicles carrying illegal quarry material manage to evade all CCTV cameras and cross over to other states is surprising. —Sanjeev, Baddi resident

“The number of officials empowered to check illegal mining was reduced to 13 in January 2021 and officials from revenue, forest, PWD, Jal Shakti departments and Block Development Officers as well as junior engineers were no longer on this list. They could make complaints about illegal mining,” said geologist Suresh Bhardwaj.

“Since riverbeds comprise revenue and forestland, these officials have a larger role to curb illegal mining,” added Bhardwaj. While such measures failed to prove effective, technological endeavours like drone surveillance and monitoring of vulnerable sites through CCTVs can make a visible difference.

Though the BBN police have won national-level accolades for evidence-based policing by installing 2,038 CCTV cameras, its use in checking illegal mining appears to be limited.

The police claim that they are regularly detecting illegal mining. “As many as 239 cases have been detected this year in the BBN belt where penalty worth Rs 41,82,500 has been realised,” said DSP, Baddi, Navdeep Singh.

“How vehicles carrying illegal quarry material managed to evade all CCTVs and cross over to other states is surprising,” said Sanjeev, a Baddi resident.

“Funds from the District Mineral Foundation Trust should be utilised for drone surveillance. The staff of the Mining Department should be trained to monitor the vulnerable areas,” said DFO, Nalagarh, Yashodeep Singh.

He added that their staff challaned offenders on a regular basis. “In the past six months, challans worth Rs 1.76 lakh have been issued by the Forest Department in the BBN,” added Singh.

With illegal mining being a multi-crore venture, detection of a few cases by the authorities failed to curb the illegal trade effectively.

The extent of illegal mining can be gauged from the fact that illegal mining on revenue land measuring 57.16 bighas had come to light on the Ratta riverbed in March.

“A joint team of officials, which inspected the riverbed in March, had detected illegal mining over 57.16 bighas in Baddi. The site has now been suggested for legal mining as it is causing loss of revenue to the state exchequer,” said Assistant Geologist, Solan, Dinesh Kumar.

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