Talekhol locals urge authorities to shut quarries

KERI: Villagers of Talekhol in Maharashtra’s Dodamarg taluka, along Goa’s border, on Friday visited all stone quarries and crusher units in the area along with government officials and urged them to shut down the polluting industry.
On December 19, the villagers had launched on an indefinite hunger strike in protest. “For more than a decade we have been facing air, water and noise pollution.Streams and rivulets originating in the hills have been destroyed. Our crops have been seriously affected,” sarpanch of Talekhol, Suresh Sawant, told TOI.
Environmental activist from Goa, Abhijit Prabhudesai, who was present in Talekhol, said, “The hills and forests of Talekhol are part and parcel of the Western Ghats. These are ecologically sensitive areas. Without obtaining environment and other mandatory clearances the stone crushers and quarries have succeeded in not only destroying natural beauty, but perennial sources of water, like springs, streams and lakes, and affecting the biodiversity of the area.”
Tahsildar of Dodamarg, Moreshwar Hadke said that there are three stone quarries and four crushing units in Talekhol.
When villagers asked owners of the quarries and crushing units for Environment Impact Assessment plan duly approved by the state pollution control board, details of precautionary measures adopted to suppress pollution and methodology adopted for periodical monitoring of dust, sound and water pollution, they failed to produce them.
“Not a single unit has constructed the required wind-breaking walls nor have they installed sprinklers for wetting the ground. Garland drains have not been constructed along the periphery of the units to avoid siltation of stone dust into seasonal streams and agricultural land,” a villager from Haddwada in Talekhol, Nilesh Shetkar, said.
Sawantwadi MLA Deepak Kesarkar assured villagers that steps would be taken to close down the quarries and units and asked them to withdraw their indefinite fast. The Talekhol locals agreed to do so, but said they would resume their protest from January 26 if no action was taken by then.
Deputy collector of Sindhudurg, Mangesh Joshi, Kesarkar, officer with the department of mines and geology, Amar Delekar, and Hadke, and other concerned government officials were part of the government team that inspected the quarries.