Quarry owners march on June 24

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Thiruvananthapuram district committee of the All-Kerala Stone Quarry Association will take out a Secretariat march on Friday protesting against the restriction imposed by the district administration in the wake of the recent quarry accidents.Association district secretary Prathapan Nair told reporters here on Thursday that the demands of the association included giving temporary permission for quarries having mining permit to function.As per the directive of the District Collector, mining licence, explosive licence, NOC of the Pollution Control Board and panchayat licence should also be produced for getting permission for the functioning of the quarries. Apart from this, the district administration has asked quarries to procure blast man licence from Kolar in Karnataka.  The association has demanded that the clause on blast man permission should not be implemented. This was because there are only less than 10 persons with blast man licence. He said that steps should be taken to distribute short fire licence in place of blast man licence to quarry owners through the Minor Mineral Corporation. Nair said that licence should be issued to all persons who have completed short fire training. Another demand was for renewing NOC for quarries on government land to ensure that there is no loss of revenue to the government, he said.The district administration has appointed a committee headed by the Additional District Magistrate to carry out a safety audit of mining operations in the 181 quarries in the district. The committee, which has the District Geologist and the District Officer of the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) as members, has been set up in the wake of the five deaths in quarries near Vilappilsala and Vembayam recently.