Fisheries Department Efforts Halt Mining In Trout Streams
SRINAGAR: With the reading down of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, the non-locals mining circuit has acquired riverbed mining rights for the first time. Some of the steams on which the riverbed mining rights were given were earlier protected because of the sensitive trout and other fish species.
The miners have not waited for the environmental clearances and have started mining. In most of the cases, they have used machinery in the streams, leaked official documents suggested.
Kashmir, mostly in the northern belt, has around 144 kilometres of trout fish streams where sand extraction was being discouraged for decades. Post-August 2019, however, all these streams and being mined for sand and boulders.