Mohan Kuthar
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)
Mangaluru, Apr 7: Braving hot sun, people of Bola within Naringana gram panchayat staged a protest by squatting in the middle of the road on Tuesday April 5, against efforts being made by some individuals to expand stone quarry at Bola by cutting through the access road. The protesters were angry at the plan of the individuals to expand stone quarry by digging the access road leading to about 60 houses, college, temple, church and Hindu graveyard.
Although crusher and stone quarry have been functioning since long at Boladapadavu within Naringana village, neither the gram panchayat, nor the people's representatives or the departments had taken any action, in spite of the fact that locals were resentful about them. The villagers could not take it any more, when they saw that an individual was expanding the stone quarry by digging through a very important main access road that leads from Boladapadavu to Bola. They therefore held protest.
Most of the residents in the area belong to a minority community, but requests and complaints filed with the gram panchayat and its members have failed to elicit any positive response so far. It is gathered that Naringana gram panchayat has not renewed the licence of the stone quarry. The department of mines has been turning a blind eye towards the goings on.
Naringana gram panchayat has set aside two acres of land for the graveyard. A committee was formed to manage it, but the committee allowed individuals to undertake stone quarrying in the name of development of the graveyard, allowing some to make money without developing the graveyard. Although the graveyard was created out of donations made by various organizations and institutions, the committee claims to have achieved these developments on its own. When a local died recently, his relatives struggled a lot to conduct the funeral. As the road leading to the graveyard is in a wretched state, people carrying the body fell down once. They then carried the body and interred it at the graveyard. Because the place is rocky, it is very difficult to bury dead bodies there, but no people's representatives have the patience to listen to their grievances, the protesters said.
Pakeera Poojary, Mabel D'Souza, Teresa D'Souza, Monica D'Souza, Louis D'Souza, Prashant D'Souza, Vincent D'Souza, Thomas D'Souza, Savira 'Souza, Sunda Poojary, Rghav, Abgishek Shetty, Kishore, Chittaranjan and Lawrence D'Souza participated in the protest.
Louis D'Souza said that unless the expansion plan of the stone quarry by bocking the road leading to a number of houses and public places is dumped, stronger measures of protest will be organized in the coming days. Raghava from Bola criticized the concerned for trying to demolish the road which is already in a bad shape. Prshant D'Souza expressed resentment at the fact that officials are hand in glove with those operating the quarry.
Naringana gram panchayat president, Ismail Meenankody, said that the panchayat president, panchayat development officer, ward member, etc had visited the spot along with the complainants as soon as complaint was received. He said that he has stopped the effort being made to expand the quarry by cutting the road. "We examined the lease document of Vishwanath Shetty, who runs the quarry, and found that it is valid Till 2017. We have instructed him not to meddle with this access road in the name of expansion, and Shetty has agreed to our instructions and stopped the work. Still, problem is surfacing at some places because of the fact that the department of mines has been issuing licences to run quarries on contract basis to people without obtaining no objection certificates from the gram panchayats. We are no aware that protest was held in spite of doing all these things to address the complaints," he stated.