Ongole: Some granite quarry owners are violating norms and dumping the granite cutting waste on the pavement of the road to Ongole city from Chimak-urthy.
According to norms set by the state level Envir-onment Assessment Aut-hority, the quarry owners have to take up tree plantations and spray water on the granite cutting waste and take steps to minimise pollution ca-used by granite dust.
The mining official will give permission for quarrying only after submitting a mining plan, in which they have to expl-ain the location for dum-ping their granite waste during the night time.
Contractors will lift it to fill the potholes on the road. Granite quarries are away from the residential houses, which is why the residents are not bothered .
Out of 200 quarries, 80 granite quarries are actively operational in Chimakurthy. Over three thousand applications are pending with the officials. The government decided to give permission for quarries after announcing the new mining policy and recently hiked royalty to increase revenue of the government.
After getting new permissions, they will start quarrying. Due to reduction of demand for galaxy granite in China, exporters are not getting orders as earlier. If granite quarrying increases, the dumping waste will also increase in Chima-kurthy.
Though the granite quarry owners are violating the norms, the officials are warning them to follow the norms.
Meanwhile, the government is planning to quarry ten lakh cubic metres of granite stone worth '5,000 crore in the international market found underneath the road leading to Chimakurthy to increase revenue.
If government allows quarrying the granite to quarry stone underneath the road, it will fetch hundreds of crores revenue to the government through royalty. Top officials in the APMDC also visited the site in Chimakurthy.
A.P. Pollution Control Board regional official M.Promod Kumar Reddy said “The quarry owner would have to submit where they will dump their granite cutting waste in their mining plan. They are dumping in their own quarry land. Meanwhile, the quarry owners using pollution free machines for cutting granite and minimising pollution.”
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