Mining their own business, sucking the ground dry

Not only has it stripped the hills of all vegetation, it has, according to a committee appointed by the Supreme Court, lowered the water table in the area’s villages to alarming levels, played havoc with air quality—besides, of course, causing noise pollution from the deafening crushers and the blasters.

The matter went to court in April when the Delhi Government’s Ridge Management Board asked for a ban saying the mining was reducing water levels in Delhi, Gurgaon and Faridabad.

On May 6, the Supreme Court stopped all mining along a five-km stretch from the Delhi border along the Haryana ridge. But in a case that comes up for hearing tomorrow, the Haryana government will argue that it’s losing Rs 50 lakh every day and that mining should be resumed.

In effect, the government will be pleading the case of a powerful cast of characters: Kartar Singh Bhadana, the Haryana Minister for Co-operatives, owns two of the affected mines. Ram Das Agarwal (BJP’s national treasurer) and Ram Chand Bainda, the BJP MP from Faridabad, both own a mine each.

Most of the affected mines are owned by local businessman S P Sethi, some jointly with Badhana. BJP spokesperson Arun Jaitley is representing Jaikishan Impex, a mining company, Congress’s Kapil Sibal is the lawyer for Agarwal, Rajiv Dhavan for Bainda.

Their key argument: the ground-water depletion is not because of mining but because of the large number of tubewells sunk by the Delhi government. And that anyway, there is widespread afforestation by the government in the Aravallis to offset this damage.

And, in a bizarre justification, it has trotted out the state Principal Conservator of Forests to argue that there is a ‘‘water divide’’ between Haryana and Delhi. In other words, falling water table in Haryana will not affect the levels in Delhi!

Nonsense, says the SC-appointed Bhure Lal committee, which has called for ‘‘tighter and constant monitoring of the area by a Central government agency as powerful and highly placed individuals.’’ The committee cites the Central Groundwater Board findings that water levels have gone up across the region once mining was forcibly stopped. After several visits to the area, it has warned of irreversible damage if the mining goes on.

It found that the water table has fallen in the area, in the four villages of Anangpur, Pali, Mohabadabad and Manger. Mineowners simply pumped the groundwater and let it flow over the hills into the Yamuna. The result: gallons being pumped out every day, round the clock. Now with mining stopped, the pits have turned into large lakes. Even today, large pipes can be seen laid out for this purpose.

It also found that the Haryana Government renewed the mining leases without enforcing key clauses of the no-objection from the Central Polluton Control Board as stipulated by a Supreme Court of 1996. That order also called for stopping mining as soon as the water table was reached and parallel process of afforestation of the denuded hills.

Among the committee’s key recommendatons:

• Continue ban on mining and pumping of groundwater.

• Use standing water to recharge and begin water harvesting to repair the damage to the watertable.

• Centre should extend the notification under the Environment Protection Act to the Faridabad part of the Aravalli ridge as well.

• Stop mining along the Gurgaon Faridabad road, too.