Swabi stone crushing plants closed down

SWABI: The district administration closed down the stone crushing plants across the district on Monday and asked the owners to get no-objection certificate (NoC) from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sources said.

The owners must get the NoC from EPA, or else they would not be allowed to continue work in the district, said the sources.

It was not immediately known what were the reasons that made the government to take prompt action against the crushing plants, adopted a new policy while telling the owners that this must be followed.

Sources said that the action was taken on the directive of the provincial government and all crushing plants have stopped, except those who had succeeded to get NoC from the EPA earlier.

It has been learnt that a number of plant owners of the district had visited the agency but returned frustrated and perplexed.

When contacted, Gul Zamin Shah, who owned three crushing plants, operating in the Saleem Khan Mountains, said that he had applied for NoC last year and the officials of the agency had visited his plants as well but despite that he was not issued the NoC.

The owners of other plants said that the closure of the plants would affect several families. The owners said that the ongoing construction projects, including the completion of Swat Expressway, would also be affected.