All 17 crusher and sand processing industries were found operating without meeting the standards in Banke district.
Findings of a report prepared by a monitoring sub-committee of the District Monitoring Committee on Riverine and Minerals showed that the industries were operating against the set standards.
Out of 22 registered crusher industries, only 17 are in operation and five have already been closed.
The monitoring sub-committee comprising Buddhiman Bista from the District Coordination Committee, engineer Prem Baral from the Office of the Road Division and administrative officer of the District Administration Officer (DAO) Haricharan Sharma has prepared the report.
In the report, they had suggested the District Monitoring Committee for taking necessary decision on the matter as none of the crusher industries had met the criteria of distance mentioned in the standards regarding the excavation, sale and management of the construction materials.
According to the report, the term “dense settlement” is not clearly defined in the distance criteria mentioned in the standards related to stone, gravel, sand excavation, sale and management, 2077.
Ajay Srivastava, chief of the district coordination committee, said that the report concluded that the industries did not meet criteria for their operation. “I will ask the crusher operators to fulfill the criteria for the operation of their industries,” he said.
But crusher manufacturers said that the government treated them wrongly.
Hari Bhushal, director of Shyam Roda Udyog in Banke, said that crusher manufacturers were facing problem in lack of policy consistency. “The government sets new standards every other day and it becomes a new problem for us,” he added.
A few days ago, an anonymous complaint was lodged at the Butwal Liaison Office of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), Nepalgunj, alleging that crusher and sand processing industries were operating against the standards in Banke and their billing methods were also faulty. It also asked the District Coordinating Committee to investigate into the matter. The sub-committee was formed after this circular.
Source : TRN,
