The Tehri Garhwal district administration in Uttarakhand has slapped a fine of ₹15 crore on a company after it found no records of 1.53 lakh cubic meter of muck generated during construction of a stretch of the Char Dham road.
Akanksha Verma, sub-divisional magistrate of Kirtinagar in the district said that during inspection of the Devprayag-Kaudiyala stretch of the road last week, officials found that the company had no record of around 1.53 lakh cubic meters of muck.
“The implementing agency was allotted eight dumping zones in this area of which four have reached maximum capacity. Apart from dumping of muck, the agency also has the option of selling the debris generated or reusing it for construction purposes. For these options, it has to pay royalty to the state government. When the records were checked, we could not find any account for 1.53 lakh cubic meters of debris, either in terms of royalty being paid or dumped at dumping zones,” said Verma.
She added that as no records were found and officials from the company were not able to give any proper explanation, it is being “suspected that the muck was dumped in the rivers.”
{{/usCountry}}She added that as no records were found and officials from the company were not able to give any proper explanation, it is being “suspected that the muck was dumped in the rivers.”
{{/usCountry}}“We have imposed a fine of over ₹15 crore on the agency as we suspect that they dumped the muck in the rivers illegally,” Verma said.
Last year, the road construction was stopped at five locations between Chamba and Dharasu as environmental norms were allegedly being flouted by the construction companies.