NAINITAL: The Uttarakhand high court (HC) on Thursday questioned the state government on its stone crushing policy and the fact that it is yet to demarcate residential, silent and industrial zones. The court observed that it is “surprised that the state is having such a casual attitude about its own future”.
The bench of chief justice RS Chauhan and justice Alok Kumar Verma remarked that the policy goes against the court judgment where guidelines were issued prohibiting any stone crushing unit within half a kilometre radius of a forest. The new policy titled ‘Stone-Crusher, Mobile Stone-Crusher and Hot-Mix Plant Policy 2020’, however bans stone crushers only in the 300m radius.
The court said the government is effectively ignoring the water pollution control Act, noise pollution rules and saying that it will come up with its own policy. “How can that be? The policy has to be in consonance with law,” the court observed.
The bench was hearing over 35 petitions challenging the state’s policy or the permissions given to individual stone crushers for functioning. It pointed to a 2010 judgment where it issued guidelines for the functioning of the stone crushers.
The court expressed its displeasure over the argument by the pollution control board (PCB) that any land where a stone crushing unit has been given licence automatically becomes an industrial zone according to the state government. The court was also informed that the state is yet to demarcate lands as per the guidelines of the noise pollution control rules. According to these rules, the lands were to be categorised into residential, industrial and silent zones.
“State will have to come up with an idea where you are going to put up your industrial hub. It can’t be that industries are cropping up every half a kilometre. What sort of planning is that? It will lead to total chaos and I am surprised the state is keeping such a casual attitude about its own future. It doesn’t seem to understand what planning is then,” the court observed.
The PCB, meanwhile, said that it had come up with a draft notification last month on demarcation of land in the state and the draft has been sent to the state government as well. The government has come up with its notification based on the PCB’s draft.
The court has now given the government and PCB till August 12 to place these notifications and listed the case for further hearing after that. The next hearing, the court said, will be in the physical court.