Cheepunuthala villagers protest over mining, stages hunger strike

Rangareddy: The environment referendum was held in Cheepunuthala village of Talakondapally mandal in Rangareddy district on Friday led to confusion at one stage. Additional Collector of Rangareddy district Prateek Jain attended the programme. As soon as the meeting began, the polling continued with the farmers and local leaders of the surrounding area. On the occasion, Prateek Jain told the farmers and leaders that they should only address the environmental permits in this meeting.

Speaking on the occasion, the farmers said that during Indira Gandhi's tenure, around 42.03 acres of land was given to the poor in 1975. While around 20 farmers objected to the mining, the remaining 10 said that they do not have any problem. As few leaders and farmers were in support of mining, few farmers suddenly started fighting and had heated conversations. Immediately, the police controlled the situation. This created confusion among the arguments of the farmers for a while. Later, the owners who are currently running the mining were accused of abusing the workers and repeatedly threatening and quarreling with the farmers.

A few farmers said that there is pond next to this mining and brought to the attention of the collector that a large number of fishes in that pond had died due to the noise of bombs and pollution from this mining. They also said that the cow sheds next to this mine collapsed and few cows also died.

Here there are many farmers who grow crops depending on bore wells, and because of the bombardment in this mining, those bore wells have accumulated and the motors are not working properly, the farmers added. In Particular, there is about 530 acres of forest land next to this mining site. According to the forest land rules, the mining activities should be continued at a distance of at least 500 meters from the forest, it is surprising that none of the officials are paying attention to the ongoing mining works adjacent to the forest land. The farmers stated that there are many types of wild animals in this forest and the survival of those wild animals is also threatened.

During the meeting, the local sarpanch Raghupathi said that since many years the mining work has been going on, we have not got a single rupee of profit from that mining. It was mentioned that 30 percent of the royalty funds should come to our village. A strong police presence was arranged under the guidance of Shadnagar ACP Kushalkar for this public opinion poll. CI's, SIs, Pollution Control Board EE Venkanna, Ramappalu, RDO Venkatacharya, Local Tahsildar Krishna, Local MPP Nirmala Srisailam Goud, Mandal Congress Party President Gujjula Mahesh, NGO Leaders Venkat and others were also present.

Similarly on Wednesday i.e on July 27, an environmental public hearing was conducted on Wednesday at Mudwin village to receive the opinions of local public to establish an underground mine. The public hearing was held under the aegis of the Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) and District Additional Collector.

Participating in the public hearing, some of the elected representatives of the local bodies, leaders of various organisations and the local people objected to the establishment of mining in their village. They said that the village is surrounded with lush green farms and everyone is dependent on the farming here. Once the mining is established in the village, everyone will start facing issues and it will damage the village, they added. They also strictly said that "we won't allow anyone to start mining in our village".

They also warned that if the mining permissions are granted we will stage protests in huge numbers.

Later, additional Collector received a petition from the villagers and police security was arranged by Amangal CI Upender, SI Hari Shankar under the guidance of ACP Kushalkar.