Jammu, Jan 4: The Committee on Environment of J&K Legislative Assembly has enjoined upon central and state construction agencies to ensure strict implementation of various labour welfare laws besides following environment norms while executing the ambitious 4-lanning project of Srinagar – Jammu Highway.
The Committee, which met here this afternoon under the Chairmanship of MLA, M.Y Tarigami, urged for strict implementation of workmen’s Compensation Act, payment of wages Act and Employees Provident Fund, which was imperative for generating interest among the labourers engaged in the execution of the projects, an official statement said.
The meeting took a detailed review of the impact of various construction and building activities on account of ongoing 4-lanning of National Highway including Pathankote – Jammu – Srinagar and Baramulla Highway on the fragile environment of the State and remedial measures taken by the concerned construction agencies/ companies in this regard
Legislators, Muhammad Sharief Niaz, Muhammad Yaseen Shah and Charanjeet Singh gave their valuable suggestions for speedy completion of National Highway and protection of environment thereof.
Speaking on the occasion, Tarigami said while it should be the joint effort of all, cutting across Political ideologies, to ensure that all the viable development initiatives in the State go ahead with full vigour and without any hiccup, but there should be Zero Compromise on environment pollution adding that development can take place at any time but environment once polluted is very difficult to retrieve again. “Environmental Pollution is detrimental for the living being and there should not be any compromise on it”, Tarigami asserted.
He called upon the Central as well as State agencies to dovetail their efforts and activities to ensure a strong monitoring mechanism for the environment conservation and asked the Central Organization to get ensure close laison with the State Environment Impact Assessment Committee for this purpose . He asked the PCB to submit the internal management Assessment report before the Environment Committee within fortnight.
Tarigami said that the main concern of EC was to know the impact of National Highway widening process on the Environment in the State and various protection measures initiated in this regard. He also urged for taking hydrology of the area into consideration while undertaking road and power projects and expressed his dismay over the perturbing reports that excavated land and earth during various construction activities is flown directly into the rivers and there is not any scientific disposal mechanism in place for the purpose.
Tarigami while urging for eco friendly engineering practices stressed for conservation of natural flora and fauna during the execution of various projects with focus on protecting wild life sanctuaries, monitoring of air, noise and water quality to ensure the effectiveness of the environmental management measures.
Among others, Chairman Pollution Control Board Lal Chand, Chief Wild Life Warden A.K. Singh, Member Secretary PCB R.K. Tickoo, Director Environment and Remote Sensing Mr. Suresh Chug, Regional Director PCB Anayat Ullah Dar, Senior Officers and Engineers of R&B, Labour and Employment and other departments besides officers from Assembly Secretariat including Special Secretary M.R. Singh attended the meeting.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 4 Jan 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 4 Jan 2013 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 5 Jan 2013 00:00:00 IST