Islamabad: Strategy proposed to protect Margallas

[Naveed Yaseen]

Noor Aftab
A comprehensive management strategy has been proposed in the revised master plan of Islamabad to protect the Margalla Hills National Park from environmental hazards, mainly due to stone-crushing and quarrying at various locations, a senior CDA official told ‘The News’ here on Wednesday.

The official said that the consultants hired for revision of the master plan of Islamabad opposed the tunnel project when some high government officials were making serious efforts to translate it into reality.

“We are in a process to develop Islamabad in a way that it is covered by green area from the Margalla Hills to Zone IV and the city expands towards the western side as suggested by the consultants in their preliminary study. At the moment, we cannot disclose the recommendations given by the consultants unless they are finally approved by the cabinet but one thing is quite clear that we are going to protect Margalla Hills at every cost,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

“The proposal in the revised master plan envisages full protection of the Margalla Hills to maintain its ecological and environmental setting and for this purpose it is necessary to make an end to stone-crushing being done in its vicinity,” he said.

A research carried out by scientists and archaeologists of the project regarding ‘Post-Earthquake Explorations of Human Remains in Margalla Hills’, revealed that the formation of the Margalla Hills goes back to the Miocen epoch. The archaeologists of the project also found two human footprints over one million years old here, preserved in the sandstone.

The official data stated that a total of 33 licences were issued to the owners involved in stone crushing out of which 31 have expired while the remaining two — Fecto Cement and Sangjani Crushers — approached the court and obtained stay orders and are still operating in the area falling in Margalla Hills.

Sources said that notices had already been issued to stone-crushers to wind up their businesses by August 30 and now CDA is contemplating to take strict action against those who are still operating despite expiry of their licences.

A conservationist, Fauzia Minallah, told ‘The News’ that CDA during early years of development of Islamabad allowed stone-quarrying and crushing to utilise the material for building roads and other structures but the continuation of stone-crushing not only caused pollution problems but also damaged the beautiful natural landscape of Margalla Hills, generally considered as ‘unmatched gift of nature’.

According to reports appearing in the media around 1,000 to 1,500 trucks carry gravel out of Margalla Hills to as far destinations as Lahore and Karachi. More than 100 stone-crushers are operating in the buffer zone comprising 109 blocks, scarring and mutilating towering hills.

Sources said that the CDA, in coordination with the Islamabad administration, offered a number of alternative sites for stone-quarrying but these were not acceptable to owners on the reasons of low potential for quarrying.

An environmentalist, Arshad Abbasi, said that the ecological setting of Margalla Hills faces threats from quarrying by crush plants, deforestation, illegal encroachments and poaching. The crush plants situated around the hills near Taxila are eroding the hills for extracting building material.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=196374