Gurgaon residents complain to deputy commissioner about illegal mining in Aravallis

Residents of Gwal Pahari on Thursday wrote to the deputy commissioner of Gurgaon complaining against illegal stone mining activity in the Aravalli forest area

Residents of Gwal Pahari on Thursday wrote to the deputy commissioner of Gurgaon complaining against illegal stone mining activity in the Aravalli forest area and urging him to take action against it.

More than 50 trucks carrying quarried stones were parked along the Gurgaon-Faridabad road for hours.

The residents’ action came after they spotted more than 50 trucks carrying quarried stones parked along the Gurgaon-Faridabad road for hours on Wednesday .

“We have complained to the police and to the mining officer to take note of the incident,” said Vaishali Rana Chandra, a resident of Gwal Pahari.

Vivek Kamboj, environmentalist, said, “The long queues of trucks were cleared at around 8pm as they had started leading to a bad traffic jam on the Gurgaon-Faridabad road.

Residents said even though mining is banned in this part of the Aravallis, the trucks were carrying quarried stones.

The complaint stated that there are more than 150 stone crushers in the area that add to pollution and traffic. The residents also wanted to know how the district authorities were unaware of the movement of such a large number of trucks carrying stones from the Aravallis.

However, he could not provide any details regarding the stones that the trucks were carrying.

The Gurgaon police said they launched a drive last week to curb illegal stone mining in the Aravallis and had seized five trucks at Sector 56 on Wednesday as they were found overloaded with stones.

Mining in the Aravallis is banned as per notification of the Union ministry of environment and forests under sections 3(1) and 3(2)(v) of Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and Rule 5(3)(d) of the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986. Mining activities cause environmental degradation in the ecologically fragile Aravalli forest area where the ground is mostly sand and rock.