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Quarrying suspended in K’taka distt after landslides: Minister
Talking to the media Somanna said a special team, headed by the Deputy Commissioner, asked to probe irregularities at the site
Chamarajanagar district in-charge Minister V Somanna on Saturday said that quarrying activities in the district have been suspended for a month until the district administration could verify that mining and quarrying in the district follow all safety processes laid out.
The announcement came after two persons were feared missing after two workers at a white-stone quarry in Gundlupet in Chamarajanagar went missing after landslides occurred at three different locations around noon on Friday.
Three other injured workers have been rescued and taken to the hospital, police said.
Fire and emergency personnel saved one of the injured. He was partially buried beneath the debris. So far, no casualties have been reported, police added.
The Minister said there were 24 workers at the site when the incident occurred, out of them 21 labourers have been accounted for by rescue workers.
Talking to the media Somanna said a special team, headed by the Deputy Commissioner, asked to probe irregularities at the site. The minister said that he was informed about illegal quarrying in the district. “Though permission was issued for extraction in a plot of 1 acre the contractors tended to over-exploit and encroach upon the surrounding land and the committee, headed by the Deputy Commissioner, would crackdown on such practices. The team would also include the Superintendent of Police and officials from the Department of Mines and Geology and others,” he told media.
The incident happened around 12.15 pm on Friday at Madalli. Police said that two were under the hill when the landslides were reported. Chamarajanagar Superintendent of Police TP Shivakumar said there was no death reported at the quarry site. “Initially, we were informed that five people have been missing after the landslides. Of them, three are traced and the whereabouts of the two are still not known. Search for them has continued,” the SP said on Saturday.
In 2019, studying satellite images sourced from the National Remote Sensing Centre, the Department of Mines and Geology (DMG) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) had identified 532 illegal quarries in the state.
The findings were mentioned in the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report as well, in which DMG was asked to take action against these illegal quarries. According to the report, at least 11.12 crore metric tonnes of specified and unspecified minerals were illegally extracted, causing a loss of ₹223.25 crore to the state.
Officials of DMG said there could be more than 2,000 illegal quarries across Karnataka. “There are around 450 licenses issued for decorative stone quarries and 300 stone quarries. But there are way more quarries, we estimate it to be around 2,000,” said an official on the condition of anonymity.
