TURA, Oct 18: The town of Chokpot in South Garo Hills literally shut down for most part of Tuesday as hundreds of students and citizens took part in a rally to demand the closure of a stone quarry which is threatening the main water source of the Dareng river.
Shops downed their shutters as citizens and students from different schools took part in the rally organized by a host of student and social groups of Chokpot region.
GSU, FKJGP, AYWO, GSMC, Nokma council (Chokpot region) and Chokpot Area Vigilance Committee had jointly called for the protest rally against the mining of minerals from the area which is leading to an environmental degradation and threatening the source of the Dareng river which provides fresh water for Chokpot town and dozens of villages down stream.
The operation of the stone quarry has resulted in entire hillocks cut by earth movers and resulted in rich fertile soil being washed away by the rains into the streams causing a man-made disaster of nature in Chokpot which is famous for its forests.
While the owner of the stone quarry has been stating that he obtained the permission of the nokma with relevant documents to extract the stones and boulders from the land, other nokmas and NGOs disagree on the grounds it is destroying the land because one’s man decision to give permission is having a cascading effect impacting thousands of people and destroying the natural resources of the region.
It is a known fact that many a times, unaware village nokmas, who are custodians of the land, part with their land for agriculture and mining to individuals, groups and companies for a monetary sum unaware of the implications it can have across the entire region. One such example is in the Pipulbari-Zakabari region of Rajabala where entire hills belonging to Nokmas have been totally wiped out due to large scale stone quarries that have devastated the plain belt.
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