PATHANAMTHITTA (Kerala) | Jun 18, 2015:

A view of the Wimrock quarry at Thekkummala in Vadasserikkara panchayat.

The Principal Secretary (Revenue) has directed the District Collector to cancel the licence granted to Wimrock Granites Private Ltd. at Thekkummala in Vadasserikkara panchayat with immediate effect for violating the lease conditions.

In a fax message (on June 16) to District Collector S. Harikishore, Principal Secretary Vishwas Mehta said the government direction was on the basis of a detailed inquiry report submitted by Deputy Collector (RR) K.S. Padmakumari Amma in this regard.

Earlier, following media reports, Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash had ordered an inquiry into the alleged violation of rules by the quarry operators.

The quarry comprised both private land and government and “it is prima facie proved that the company has violated the rule of leaving the minimum distance of 7.5 metres between the private land and the government land,” the order said.

“Though the company was permitted to mine 36,000 metric tonne of rock a year as per the existing lease deed, it has been mining 36,00,000 metric tonne every year and if this practice continued, the whole Thekkummala hill will disappear in a short span of time,” the Principal Secretary’s order said.

As per the lease deed, the permission was to mine the rock at the rate of Rs.16 a metric tonne. But the company was mining more rock than the permitted volume, inflicting a yearly loss of Rs.5.70 crore to the public exchequer.

The Collector told The Hindu that he had directed the Ranni tahsildar to issue a ‘stop memo’ to the quarry operator at Thekkummala on Tuesday afternoon.

(Source: http://www.thehindu.com/)