Rajouri: A panel of the J&K Pollution Control Committee members Friday held a public hearing for environmental clearance of a minor mineral Block 01/01Nowshera Tawi river downstream project at Dhangri village of the Rajouri district.
The members of the panel included a representative of the Regional Directorate Office PCC Jammu, Dr Mohan Snehi; Divisional Officer PCC Rajouri, Bader Hussain and District Mineral Officer, JS Pawar.
Assistant Commissioner Defence, Saleem Qureshi and AD Fisheries were also present in the public hearing programme.
Sarpanches, Panches and local people participated in the programme.
The minor mineral mining project at Muradpur Bridge -Nowshera Tawi downstream, is spread over an area of 8.61 hectares and the public hearing was held in terms of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, 2006 of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India.
Environmental Consultant of M/s P&M Solution, Abhinav Mishra briefed the audience about the details of the proposed mining block clusters, including the mining method and anticipated impact of the mining in the area and the measures proposed under Environment Management Plan and Corporate Environmental Responsibility.
Several issues related to mining including ruthless extraction of river bed material, regulation of minor mineral blocks, strict enforcement of rates for raw material, check on air pollution arising out of hot-mix plants operating across the district, big river craters besides other issues were raised by the public on the occasion.
The Members of the panel assured the public that genuine concerns of the locals for reasonable rates of minor minerals; mining rights to panchayats and other issues raised during the public hearing would be appropriately addressed.
The Members disseminated the necessary awareness among the public and educated them about the extraction of minor minerals through scientific ways, containing air, water and noise pollution.
The Members told the participating public that scientific mining will be done in proposed minor mineral projects taking care of all the environmental safeguards.
