Badal wants brick kilns out of green nod ambit

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday asked Minister of Environment, Forests & Climate Change Parkash Javadekar to personally intervene and exempt mining of brick earth and ordinary earth from environment clearances.

Badal wanted the exemption for mining areas up to five hectares wide and up to 1.5 m deep.

As of now, clearance is required under the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification dated September 14, 2006.

In a letter to Javadekar, the chief minister requested to get the necessary amendment incorporated to exempt brick kilns from the ambit of the EIA notification.

He said manufacturing of red bricks using ordinary earth was a century-old practice in India.

He argued it was a small-scale activity and involved digging only up to a certain depth. There are about 3,000 brick kilns in Punjab manufacturing burnt bricks using ordinary earth, he said.

Badal cited according to the original EIA notification, dated September 14, 2006, issued by the Ministry of Environment & Forests, mining of minor minerals in an area less than five hectares fell under the ambit of the said notification and hence did not require any environment clearance.

However, according the orders dated February 27, 2012, passed by the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Deepak Kumar etc. V/s State of Haryana & others, the projects of mining of minor minerals even in an area less than five hectares were required to obtain the Environment clearance (EC).

In compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Environment & Forests vide its office memo (OM) dated May 18, 2012 directed that all the projects of mining of minor minerals would require prior EC irrespective of the size of the mining area.

The chief minister further informed Javadekar that according to the practice ordinary earth was mined from fields in small stretches up to five hectares and usually up to a depth of 1 m to 1.5 m by the individual Brick Kiln Owners (BKOs).

The BKOs took land on lease from farmers for lifting the earth and land was made fit again for agricultural purposes. Punjab primarily being an agricultural state land availability for uses other than agriculture is scarce.

Usually, small/marginal farmers give their land on lease for mining of brick earth/ordinary earth and same was restored as early as possible after mining to make it fit for agricultural purposes.

As such this activity does not have any environmental implication. Moreover, this lease was generally for a limited period of up to six months or at the most for a year. Thus, it was very difficult for the BKOs/individuals to obtain the environmental clearance for such small scale activity within this period.