District Magistrate, Kathua Ramesh Kumar today convened a public hearing in connection with Environmental clearance for establishment of Ravi river bed mining project of minor mineral (sand & gravel) at Jagatpur, Kathua.The public hearing was organized in pursuance of EIA notification, 2006 that mandates conduct of Public hearing for such projects before the proposal is considered for environmental clearance for such projects. Locals of the area, Sarpanch and Naib- Sarpanch of Jagatpur, and representatives of NGOs were among those present on the occasion to express their objections, suggestions before the panel nominated for conduct of Public hearing.DM Kathua stressed that for sustainable development, there has to be a balance between development and environment protection. He said that due to indiscriminate and unscientific mining, great loss is caused to environment, water table, crops and natural eco system.
To mitigate such negative impact, regulation of mining activity as per prescribed norms of MOEF was a necessity maintained the DM .Regional Director, J & K SPCB Jammu Showkat Chowdhary highlighted the purpose of the public hearing and emphasized that to regulate the mining activity on scientific lines and keeping the environmental concerns in mind, the mining activity has been put by Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India under the activities requiring mandatory Environmental clearance before such activities are allowed to be undertaken and the pre-requisite for any such activity to be considered for environmental clearance is conduct of Public hearing.The Expert consultant from Envirta Sustainable Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., Manish Kumar represented the project proponent on the occasion and highlighted the detailed particulars of Project and the mitigation measures in Environment Management Plan to minimize the impact of mining on the local environment. Thereafter Question- answer session was started by K N Dutta, Coordinator of the Consultancy firm, in which doubts and apprehensions of the audience were cleared.Vote of thanks was presented by Divisional Officer, PCB Kathua Angrez Singh.