Thousands of quarries and stone-crushing units are set to be shut down next month if the state government fails to roll back the one-time settlement (OTS) scheme approved by the State Cabinet a few days ago. The Cabinet’s decision is aimed at collecting the pending penalty amounting to Rs 6,105 crore from the miners in the state.
“The proposed OTS scheme will be a death knell for quarry owners and the owners of stone-crushing units. We oppose the OTS scheme. We have already submitted a memorandum to the Minister of Mines and Geology. The minister promised to take us into confidence while deciding on collecting the pending penalties from quarry owners but did not inform us while deciding to introduce the OTS scheme,’’ said D Siddaraju, president, Union of Karnataka Quarry & Stone Crusher Owners’ Association.
Siddaraju said that thousands of trucks and lakhs of people depend on quarries and stone-crushing units for livelihood, and the state government has been receiving royalty from miners. “We want the state government to cancel the OTS scheme and collect only Rs 5 lakh as a penalty for per hectare of a quarry. If the state government fails to withdraw the OTS scheme, we will shut down quarries and stone-crushing units across the state. We will not allow trucks to carry construction material from neighbouring states into Karnataka. We will decide on the date of shutdown shortly,’’ he said, adding that three quarry owners have already committed suicide due to harassment from mines and geology department officials who demanded they pay a huge penalty.Around 3,350 quarries and 2,500 stone-crushing units are being operated across the state.
Demanding the state government to extend the quarry lease to 30 years from the existing 10 years, Umashankar, treasurer, Union of Karnataka Quarry & Stone Crusher Owners’ Association, said the respective Deputy Commissioners are not extending the lease of the land to 30 years. “A quarry owner or stone-crushing unit owner has to invest a lot of money on machinery. It will benefit quarry owners and stone-crushing unit owners if the lease period is extended to 30 years,’’ he said.
The other demands are to extend the lease period for quarries from the existing 30 years to 50 years and for stone crushing units to 50 years, stop fixing electricity bills unscientifically for stone crushing units, and exempt royalty for quarry owners who operate quarries on their own land.
