Brick kiln mafia

With great spurt in constructional work in Kashmir in the aftermath of militancy, hundreds of thousands of new houses and structures have come up in short span of time. People have the need to have residential houses and then the Government is also expanding construction of buildings and structures to meet its requirements. For all these constructional works that are going on on a massive scale bricks and timber are the primary material required. To meet timber requirements forests have been depleted right or wrong, and timber is procured through legal as well as illegal means to meet the rising demand. But as far as bricks, this business is entirely in private hands. There was once a scheme of the Government of having brick kiln on scientific methods somewhere near Pampore but that fizzled out as is the case with many public sector undertakings.
Brick kiln business has become a very thriving business in the entire state. People with resources have started brick kilns at right or wrong places because the returns are enormous.  On finding that uncontrolled operating of brick kilns could damage the ecology, quality of land and would also consume agricultural and orchard land the Government brought Brick Kiln Act of 2010. In addition we have Jammu and Kashmir Forest Act 1987. Now these two Acts put together place many strict conditions for starting a brick kiln anywhere in the State. But the ground situation is something different. In particular the brick kiln mafia in Budgam district has spread its tentacles far and wide and in total violation of the above mentioned two Acts. According to reports with Excelsior, nearly 40,000 kanals of land in the district has been brought under kiln works and most of this is arable land where shali and other crops are cultivated. Thousands of fruit bearing trees and orchards have been felled and the land converted into brick kilns. This is in total disregard to the law stated above. Event he district authorities have conceded that vast tracts of land in about a dozen of villages of the district have been converted into brick kilns because brick business is fast track generating money.
It seems that Revenue and Forest Department officials are unable to stop the ravages of orchards and cultivatable land. According to the Act only banjar kadeem meaning unproductive land from olden days can be converted into brick kilns. Officials have visited the sites and found that gross irregularities have been committed. In one or two cases even FIRs have also been lodged. But the illegal activity of converting arable lands or orchards into brick kilns continues unabated. We have a full fledged Department of Environment and besides that we have the Forest Department both of whom are deeply concerned with the forest cover of the state. How come that they are not monitoring the way forest cover is getting depleted. We have scarcity of land in the State because the population is increasing at a fast pace and they need land for habitation and cultivation. If productive land is converted into wasteland and used for bricks, this means that the land available for agrarian pursuits is shrinking. It will have adverse impact on the economy of the State.
What is needed to be done is to enforce the two relevant Acts in letter and spirit. The nexus between the kiln mafia and the officials concerned whether in revenue, forest or ecological department, has to be broken. More stringent rules have to be framed and the culprits have to be given exemplary punishment. The violation of the Act has come to the notice of concerned officials only when the local residents made complaints to them. It speaks for good civic sense of the local people which has to be appreciated. But the question is where are the Government functionaries, the officials of Revenue Department, the patwaris, girdawars, naib tehsildars and tehsildars whose duty it is to keep watch over the lands and agrarian related activities under their jurisdiction. Where is the forest department staff? Either they are complicit in this case or they do not perform their duty as expected of them. Therefore they should be made answerable.

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