Environmental degradation: Making roads, destroying natural habitat

Dumping of debris in rivers, landslides have increased by six folds since 2008 due to unhindered usage of blasts.

MUZAFFARABAD: The number of landslides on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road in the past two years has increased by about six folds. Compared to 35 landslides reported in 2008, there were more than 200 landslides on the road in 2010.

The main reason cited for the increased occurrence of landslides is the unabated use of blasts by the companies working on the road’s expansion, even though the original project proposal had minimal provision for them.

Moreover, the construction companies tasked with rebuilding of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road up to Chakothi in Jhelum and the Neelum Valley road from Muzaffarabad to Aathmuqam have been dumping mud and rocks into the Neelum and Jhelum rivers, instead of moving them to suitable sites.

Pakistan Army’s subsidiary Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) is building the 50-km Srinagar- Muzaffarabad road under the supervision of National Highway Authority. Locals allege that millions of rupees allocated in the PC1 of the project for safe disposal of waste rocks and mud have been siphoned off elsewhere.

China Xinjiang Beixin (CXB), the construction company which is widening the Neelum Valley road, has also been accused of dumping mud and rocks into the Neelum River. The funds allocated for the safe disposal of debris were used elsewhere, people familiar with the project alleged.

This “massive” dumping of rocks and mud into rivers, according to environmental experts, has badly affected the flora and fauna along the riverbank and in the river.

Even though the use of explosives was extremely restricted in the original proposals of the two projects, it has been reported time and again that the two construction companies have been employing explosives to move rock.

Experts believe that these improper construction methods have destabilised slopes along the roads and riverbanks. The landslides, in turn, deposit huge amounts of silt in the two rivers and Mangla Dam (which is fed by Neelum and Jhelum rivers).

Even though AJK has strong laws for environment protection, enforcing them is near impossible for Azad Jammu and Kashmir-Environmental Protection Agency (AJK-EPA) as the agency has neither the staff nor tribunals to enforce them, according to Deputy Director Muhammad Shafiq Abbasi.

“We have a staff of 15 field employees – the Director General, three deputy directors and clerical staff. We just do not have the ability to enforce environmental laws,” Abbasi told The Express Tribune.

He added that there was a plan for environmental tribunals to be set up under the law adopted by the legislative assembly seven years ago.

“So far there are no tribunals or legal mechanisms for the enforcement of environmental bylaws,” he said.

AJK-EPA took action once last year when the then Director General, Raja Abbas Khan, raided some sites along the Muzaffarabad-Chakothi-Srinagar road where debris was being dumped into Jhelum River by FWO. He also had some FWO construction machinery confiscated.

But everything was undone once the environmental agency succumbed to pressure and stepped back after FWO claimed they were under pressure from the top brass to dispose of rubble quickly because of the road’s military significance.

Ironically, accordng to Abbasi, no non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working for environment conservation took notice of the rubble falling into the rivers, nor were any concerns shown by the local communities.

The NGOs dealing with sustainable development also seem indifferent to the environmental degradation in the wake of the construction companies’ activities, he said.

As for AJK-EPA, there was not much that it could do. In Abbasi’s words: “EPA is a toothless body with big guns but no ammunition or manpower to use the weapons.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st,  2011.