Gholia Kalan (Moga), Up in arms against the proposed cement plant coming up on the green plains at Gholia Kalan village in Moga district, the rural folk outrightly rejected this proposal during a public hearing on objections organised by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) in association with the district administration on Friday. The panchayat and residents of the village had passed a resolution against the project and gave a memorandum to NS Mansahia, executive engineer of the PPCB, and Mahinder Singh Kainth, Additional Deputy Commissioner of the district.
Raising concern over pollution, Jagsir Singh, a member of the panchayat, said some poor people living close to the project site were making a living by sowing horticultural crops, particularly vegetables. “It will be impossible for them to grow vegetables due to the air pollution caused by the cement plant,” he said. Harbhajan Singh, a former member of the panchayat, said the village already has another cement plant, which has ruined the hopes of poor farmers to grow vegetables. Shavinder Pal Singh, Naib Singh and other people of the village said that there was a school within 500 metres of the proposed site and if this project was sanctioned by the government, it would have an adverse effect on children.
A consultant and other functionaries of the cement company claimed that they had prepared an environment impact assessment report and an environment management plan keeping in view the concerns of the local people. “It is a very small cement plant having a capacity of just 30 tonnes per day and all the raw materials will be purchased from outside,” they said.
The company officials further claimed that they had made a proposal to install bag filters on the cement plant having an efficiency of 95 to 98 per cent which would reduce the quantity of air pollution.
Gholia Kalan village has a population of 7,657 persons living in 1,386 households. An application for grant of environmental clearance for this cement plant was considered at a meeting of the state expert appraisal committee of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests on July 18, 2009, subject to the condition that the project proponent should submit an environment impact assessment study report for a final nod to the project. The committee has asked the company that environment monitoring should be carried out for at least six different locations all around the project within a 10 km radius of the proposed site besides other measures.
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