Illegal slate mining claims villager’s life at Khaniara

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, November 13

Illegal mining in Khaniara slate mines claimed the life of a miner of the village yesterday.

Kikar Singh (69) died while trying to blast the rocks in the mountains for extracting slates. The police have booked contractor Satish Kumar of Khaniara.

SP, Kangra, Vimukt Ranjan said the police had registered a case under Sections 304-A and 336 of the IPC and the explosives Act against the contractor, who had engaged Kikar for extracting slates from the mines.

Many labourers from the village risk their life, climbing up the mountains, blasting rocks and bringing back slates for contractors.

Illegal mining is continuing in Khaniara despite a ban by the Supreme Court.

The villagers lost the right of slate mining in the Dhauladhars after the state government had failed to deposit about Rs 1.6 crore as the net present value of the 25-hectare forestland that was to be diverted for the mining purpose with the Compensatory Afforestation Monitoring and Planning Authority (CAMPA).

The Union Ministry for Environment and Forest had given March 13, 2014, the deadline to the state government for depositing the amount with CAMPA, pending which it had threatened to cancel ad hoc permission for mining on the land. However, the government didn’t deposit the money.

Sources told The Tribune that now the state government had deposited the amount. However, the land had not been demarcated due to which the mining activity taking place in the Dhauladhars was illegal.

The General Manager, Industries, Kangra, was not available for comments despite repeated attempts.

Environmentalists are demanding that an inquiry should be held as to how mining has been continued in the village on the forestland for the past many years.