Shadow Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 02:
Owners and workers of JCB, dumper, tipper, tractor, trolley of Nagrota constituency, who have been rendered jobless by the Government in view of restrictions imposed on lifting of sand and gravel from river beds, on Monday urged the Government to review its order on ban of mining so as to save the owners from starvation.
Due to the ban on mining in Nagrota for the last two year, the tipper and dumper owners said they are facing a lot of trouble as all their vehicles are parked since the ban and they are sitting idle.
Addressing a press conference here, today, President All JCB, dumper, tipper, tractor, Trolley Owners and Workers Union Nagrota, Ch Bashir Ahmad said, “Not only this, they are forced to pay the installments of the vehicles from their pocket.”
He said that they are also facing a lot of trouble due to a ban on mining in the area coupled with spread of Coronavirus and imposition of lock down and other restrictions. He said that till date mining work has not been started, due to which there is a great anger among operators of tippers and dumpers.
“We purchased the tractors and dumpers on a bank loan of Rs 35-40 lakh and now the Geology and Mining Department imposed a ban and therefore put their families at starvation,” he said.
He said the Government lifted the ban in many districts but failed to take the same decision in favour of Nagrota constituency.
He said we also appealed to the government and concerned departments many times through press conferences and protests but nothing has been done to resolve their issues by the government till date.
He said when a large protest was held at Khanpur Nagrota, ADC Jammu visited the venue and assured them that their issues would be resolved within eight days but after passing out of eight months ADC failed to fulfill his assurance.
He said if the government imposed a ban on mining then how it issues tender for development works and from where it gets construction material for construction of government projects.
He made an appeal to the district administration to issue instructions to the concerned department to start mining work in Nagrota at the earliest so that the tipper and dumper operators and others associated with this trade could resume their work and feed their families.
He warned the district administration and government to redress their issue within eight days otherwise they will be forced to lodge a strong agitation blocking National Highway for which the responsibility of any untoward incident will be laid on government and district administration.
Others present in the press conference include Vice President Sumit Singh, Mohd Younas, Madan Shah, BDC Chairman Rehmat Ali, Arun Sharma, Sahil Sharma, Devender Kumar, Ajay Sharma and Raman Kumar.
