The residents dwelling in the pharma city project area are opposing the state government’s move to notify a mining zone in the land offered by them for the project. Recently the state government of Telangana had notified a concrete quarry mining zone in the 19,000 acres of pharma city area, which is aimed at facilitating easy availability of construction materials for the building roads, drainages, buildings and other necessary infrastructure for the firms setting up their units in the area.

However, the villagers are up in arms and opposing the government’s move as they fear setting up concrete quarries will all the more pollute the area and damage their crops.

While staging a protest at the government’s decision a group of villagers demanded the government to take back its decision of notifying mining zone in the lands offered by them. They said that the government’s decision has dealt a double blow for them as they are already facing the risk of pollution and health hazard due to the pharma city project itself.

“Already the pharma city project is a big risk for the local residents as it not only pollute the surrounding land, water and air.. Now the government’s decision to notify  a mining zone will all the more destroy the area both environmentally and economically for the local residents,” said an agitating resident of the pharma city, on anonymity.

The pharma city which falls under Kandukur, Kadthal and Yacharam mandals spreading across 19,000 acres has always been facing hurdles right from its inception. However the government had taken it on a priority and has proposed to initially acquire 12,000 acres of land, and appointed Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSIIDC) as nodal agency for acquiring the land and developing the basic facilities like roads, drains, power lines and common effluent treatment plants. However as part of its first phase of land acquisition programme, the state government had already acquired 6000 acres of land and began the development works.

Having made a forecast of huge demand for construction material in the pharma city zone, the contractors and infrastructure maternal providers have lobbied with the government to notify a mining zone in the five villages so that they can set up stone crushing units to meet the huge demand for concrete from the constructing firms of the pharma city.

This has triggered a sharp protest from the villagers who said that they had already lost agriculture land and if stone crushing units are set up they would lose their homes. The main contention of the villagers is that granite quarrying and stone crushing will not only damage their crops with dust polluting land, water, and air, but also deplete the ground water levels in the surrounding regions causing a grave danger to the overall farming community in the region.