THIRUVANANTHAPURAM | March 03, 2015: Around 500 members of the Mookkunnimala Protection Council, including women and children, took out a march to the Directorate of Mining and Geology at Kesavadasapuram in protest against issuance of mining licence at Mookkunnimala in violation of norms on Monday. The march which began from St Mary's School, Pattom, was inaugurated by district panchayat vice-president Rufus Daniel.

Daniel had already raised protests within the panchayat committee over the decision to construct a road reportedly in favour of a quarry functioning at Kunnathukal. Members of the council also handed over documents to the director, the district geologist and another official to establish the fact that no mining lease shall be permitted at Mookkunnimala since the land is assigned for a completely different purpose. Reports prepared by the revenue wing and panchayat department were submitted to the department of mining and geology.

However, it is learnt that officials of the geology department maintained their stand saying that leases and permits for mining could be allotted if the applications are legal. The members who met the officials clarified that such allocation of permit is not permissible in the first place.

According to the members of the council, the department of mining and geology had issued mining permits to quarries in violation of existing norms. They said that officials have never bothered to ascertain if quarries comply with the norms.

As per the Mines Act, 1952, every mine shall have readily available arrangements for conveyance to hospitals or dispensaries of persons who, while being employed in the mine, suffer bodily injury or become ill. Also, a person trained in first aid should be made available during working hours. The quarry where a labourer died recently after falling off a height complied with none of these conditions.

While submitting an FIR last year, the vigilance team probing the illegal quarrying at Mookkunnimala had included an official of the mining department as one of the accused in the mining case. Five days of total station survey conducted by the vigilance at Mookkunnimala had already given solid evidence to work on a substantial report exposing the illegalities in quarrying at Mookkunnimala. As per the Kerala Minor Mineral Concession Rules the depth of the pit below surface shall not exceed 6 metres. During the survey, however, the officials found out that the depth of pits reached a shocking 60-70 metres - ten times above the permissible limit.

The members also raised concerns over the inclusion of an official of the geology department to assist the vigilance team since, according to the members, the official had colluded with the quarry owners to issue mining permits.

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