Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 30: Anguished over the miserable plight of hundreds of tractor and trolley operators who were rendered jobless, a strong contingent of Panther activists along with scores of aggrieved labourers staged a vociferous protest demonstration here in Jammu today.
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While raising anti- BJP Government slogans, the infuriated protesters torched its effigy and accused the J&K administration of pushing them to starvation.
Speaking to the media on the occasion, party chairman Harsh Dev Singh sought a fair deal for the tractor and trolley operators who have been rendered jobless by the Govt in view of restrictions imposed on lifting of sand and gravel from the river beds. He said that while restrictions on manual lifting of sand and bajri were unwarranted, the Govt functionaries were exceeding their mandate by imposing a blanket ban on extraction of such materials.
“While the poor tractor and trolley operators were restrained from lifting the said materials, the big contractors and influential land mafia was openly extracting minerals from river beds by using JCB machines, earth excavators and lifting and transporting such material by defying the law as well as the orders of the Government”, Harsh rued.
He charged the local administration and officials of Geology and Mining Department of conniving with big contractors while disallowing the poor tractor trolley owners of their legitimate claims. The poor tractor trolley operators who had obtained loans from banks are finding it impossible to pay the installments in view of total collapse of their business in the wake the said restrictions and the ongoing Corona pandemic resulting in untold miseries for thousands of such dependent families.
He called for waiving off the loans of the affected persons as a goodwill gesture in keeping with the fundamentals of a welfare state.
Lambasting the BJP leaders for remaining silent over the grave issue, Singh divulged that while ‘grey-gold’ mafia continued to fully control illegal mining in many rivers, streams and nullahs of Jammu region, several Government projects and the general public have been badly suffering as the rates of the building material like sand, gravel and stones have increased more than double in recent times. They have fixed rates of material at their sweet will. There is total chaos and the State administration has gone into deep slumber, Singh added.
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