Team Herald

MARGAO: Hailing the High Court order making it mandatory for stone-crushers to have a conversion sanad, Sao Jose de Areal Villagers Union has demanded that the crushers be shut down till they get the conversion sanad.

Briefing media persons, Freddy Travasso of the Union recalled that soon after they had filed the writ petition in 2009 demanding closure of all the crushers operating without conversion sanad, the then government headed by Digambar Kamat came out with a notification on March 2, 2009 exempting crushers from having a conversion sanad.

“After almost nine years we have got justice with Justice N M Jamdar and Justice Prithviraj K Chavan declaring the government notification void,” he said adding that the people of his village would now have peace.

He said that life was difficult for them with 43 crushers operating in the village causing not only noise pollution, but more seriously dust pollution and overburdening the narrow village roads making it difficult for people to move around.

The court has directed the collectors of both the districts to issue notices within six weeks to the crushers to produce their conversion sanad or give them certain time within which they have to obtain the same.

Observing that the crusher owners had nine years time to obtain the conversion sanad, a villager Nelson Mascarenhas argued that since the High Court has nullified the government notification, the crushers should be shut down if they do not have the conversion sanad and restart only after they obtain the same.

The Union said it would also approach the panchayat to shut down the crushers operating in the village without the conversion sanad. “All the crushers in our village do not have the conversion sanad as they are all operating on communidade land,” Freddy said, adding that the sarpanch and his brother own two separate crushers.