Jaisalmer | Nov 13, 2017: Hearing a petition filed against the state government on allotting salt mine areas to HPCL for setting up the proposed oil refinery in Pachpadra of Barmer district, the Rajasthan high court issued notices to state government and HPCL asking them to submit a reply within two weeks.

The next hearing is on November 27.

The writ petition was filed by Parasmal Kharwal, president of salt producer committee and Ashapura Sambhara Namak Utpadan Kshetra Vikas Samiti.

The petitioners of Pachpadra area had filed the petition in the high court to not allot salt producing area to HPCL.

On behalf of the petitioners, advocates Rakesh Arora and Mahesh Kumar Kharwal advocated the case and submitted stay application on the construction work of the refinery in salt producing areas. The state government and HPCL have sought four weeks' time to reply to the stay application. Hearing the case, the bench of judge Nirmaljeet Kaur gave two weeks' time to government and HPCL to file their reply and posted the next hearing on November 27.

The petition said that the land allotted to HPCL by the government is reserved for salt industry.

The salt industry in Pachpadra is 600 years old in which 10,000 people are employed directly or indirectly.

With the construction of the refinery, around 200 salt mines will get buried.

HPCL and the state government had to submit their reply on Thursday, but they asked for four weeks' time on which the court granted them two weeks.

(Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)