Kerala - Kochi   

Stone crushers to join quarry strike

KOCHI: Extending support to the stone quarries’ strike, stone crushing units in the Sate have decided to shut down from January 7 raising fears that other segments of the construction industry will throw their weight behind the quarry owners.

The decision to go on with the agitation was taken at a special meeting of the All-Kerala Crusher Owners’ Association, which met at Thiruvalla on Thursday. Davis Pathadan, secretary of the association, said all the 1,200 crushing units in the State would go on an indefinite shutdown if the government did not find an amicable solution to the All-Kerala Stone Quarry Association’s demands. He said the Ernakulam district unit of his association had already stopped work.

The quarry association had announced their plan for a State-wide shutdown a fortnight back, effective from January 7, to press for their 14-point demand, including an easier and transparent single-window licensing procedure for the stone quarries. However, following the December 22 disaster at a stone quarry near Perumbavoor and the subsequent government steps against quarries in Kunnathnadu taluk, the quarry owners in the district shut their units down indefinitely from December 26. The revenue authorities insisted that only those quarries which had obtained all the necessary licences could operate. The association, contending that only one section of the quarries cannot continue to operate, asked all its members to shut down. Of the roughly 800 quarries in the district, less than 10 per cent possess all the required explosives licences and other permits.

M.A. Mathai, district president of the Crusher Owners’ Association, said that in support of the quarry owners’ cause, the over-200 crushers in the district shut their units on Thursday, four days ahead of the State-level agitation. Sibi Paul, State vice-president of the association, said there was no existence for the crushing units without the quarries as granite blocks from the quarries were their main raw material.

Meanwhile, Reji Illickaparambil, secretary of the Ernakulam district unit of the All-Kerala Stone Quarry Association, said that more segments of the construction industry, such as concrete hollow-bricks manufactures had offered support to the quarry owners’ cause and had decided to shut down their units.

He said the main demand of the quarry owners, which had been raised before the government for many years, was that the licensing procedure should be made less rigid, more accessible, easier and transparent. There should be a single-window clearance so that the quarry owners were not made to run for months together after the licenses and permits issued by half-a-dozen different agencies. The explosives licence, currently issued by the Joint Controller of Explosives, Chennai, should be issued by the State government’s district officials.

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