U'khand HC to hear Bageshwar soapstone mining case on Mar 10

Nainital, Mar 7 (PTI) Uttarakhand High Court on Friday heard a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) raising the issue of cracks appearing in the houses of several villages of Tehsil Kanda of Bageshwar district as a result of soapstone mining in the area.
     The court took suo motu cognizance in the matter and asked the government to explain how the mining work is done and to present a proof of the said work.
     The case was heard before the division bench of Chief Justice G Narendar and Justice Alok Mehra.
     Earlier, the villagers of Kanda tehsil had sent a letter to the Chief Justice saying their agriculture, houses, water lines have been destroyed due to illegal soap stone mining.
     Those who had the resources built their homes in Haldwani and other places. Now, only the poor are left in the villages. Soapstone mining is ruining their livelihood, lives and houses, the letter from the villagers said.
     It was also said in the letter that in this regard, representations were also given to the higher officials many times but no solution to their problem was found.
     The investigation committee chairman Neel Kumar has been asked to inform the court about the things that are lacking to investigate the excavations.
     Bageshwar Superintendent of Police and investigation committee chairman Anil Kumar appeared in the court through video conferencing at the hearing.
     He informed the court that till now he has inspected 72 excavation sites, out of which the report of 55 has been presented in the court.
     The court will now hear the matter on March 10.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)