BANGALORE: Infrastructure development in Karnataka may soon come to a standstill as all the stonecrushing units in the state are s..
BANGALORE: Infrastructure development in Karnataka may soon come to a standstill as all the stonecrushing units in the state are situated in unsafe zones. The Supreme Court's sixmonth deadline to relocate stonecrushers to safer zones is nearing.
The Supreme Court on March 10, 2011, imposed a fine of `1 lakh on the Karnataka government for failing to implement its order to shift stonecrushing units to safe zones.It had then pulled up the state government for its failure to shift out stonecrushing units as ordered by it and directed the state to comply with the order within six months but now with just six weeks left the department officials have not marked any stonecrushing units as nonsafe zone.
Karnataka Stone Crushing units association president Lakshmipathi said, "The state government has not marked any of the units as nonsafe zone, no concerned department has called us nor has any minister taken up the initiative to solve the issue." Explaining the problems in relocating the units he said, "Even after the identification of safe zones, we require a minimum of six months to relocate the units." "The relocation of stonecrushing units involves a lot of time which includes construction of bunkers, workers' quarters, installation of pollution control measures and more but the government is undecided on the safe zones," he added."As per the apex court's order, none of these crushing units come under safe zone; they can function only up to September, we have not given any licenses to new crushing units as they have all failed to satisfy the safe zone parameters," said A S Sadashivaiah, chairman of KSPCB.When KSPCB decided to shut down all stone crushing units in the state, stone crushing approached the court for 6 months time to shift the units.
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