Kashmir’s Karewas Are Being Dug to Death |
I walked through Zadoora village in Pulwama this winter and saw something that turned my stomach.
Hillsides lay gouged open like wounds. Red earth stood naked under the sky. Trucks had carved deep ruts into what was once farmland. The air smelled of dust and diesel.
This was supposed to be protected land.
Kashmir’s famous karewas, those flat-topped plateaus that hold our history in their layers, were disappearing, truckload after truckload.
I knew the law, and I had read the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act of 1957. I understood that clay, sand and bajri all count as minor minerals. I knew that anyone who wants to dig here needs Environmental Clearance from the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority. This is mandatory and basic.
I also knew that the men doing this digging had papers in their pockets. District Mineral Officers had stamped their approvals, while District Magistrates had looked the other way. Everyone pretended these permissions meant something.
The Supreme Court settled this question in 2024. The case was Noble M Paikda versus Union of India. The court looked at these exact kinds of permits. It declared them null and void.
A DMO cannot give you permission to destroy a mountain. A District Magistrate cannot sign away our geological heritage. The law never gave them this power.
I wrote about what I saw. Then I did something more. I knocked on the door of the National Green Tribunal.
I picked two villages as examples: Zadoora in Pulwama, and Rangeen Kultreh in Chadoora, Budgam.
I brought photographs, RTI documents, proof that no Environmental Clearance existed, and evidence that no Consent to Operate had ever been sought.
The DMO Pulwama had actually admitted this in writing. He had replied to an RTI query stating that no such permissions were required. This admission became the smoking gun.
The Principal Bench of the NGT heard my case on February 6th. Justice Prakash Srivastava presided and Dr Senthil Vel sat as expert member. My lawyer, Advocate Saurabh Sharma, laid out the facts with precision. The tribunal understood immediately what was at stake.
It ordered a joint committee to investigate. The team would include senior officers from the Central Pollution Control Board. Representatives from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change would join. The Deputy Commissioners of Pulwama and Budgam would participate. They would visit both sites, measure the damage, identify the culprits, and recommend punishment.
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The committee had ten weeks. The order came down strong and clear.
Everyone thought this would stop the looting, but everyone was wrong.
Less than one month later, the DMO Budgam issued another permission. He wrote order number DMO/Bud/DGM/F-123/2792-99 dated March 2, 2026. He authorized earth mining in Nagam, Chadoora. He claimed the Fire and Emergency Services needed one thousand cubic meters of clay for a new office building.
The trucks rolled in, took ten thousand cubic meters, maybe more, and the hills bled again.
The same story repeated itself in Pulwama. The DMO there gave permission for riverbed mining in Sasara nallah. He allowed heavy machinery, and ignored the fact that the NGT had already banned mechanical mining in this same stream last year.
These office bearers know exactly what they are doing. They have read the 2016 Jammu and Kashmir Minor Mineral Concession Rules. Rule 2 defines minor minerals clearly. Section 3 of the 1957 Central Act lists them specifically: building stones, gravel, ordinary clay, ordinary sand. The second schedule leaves no room for confusion.
The Environmental Impact Assessment Notification makes the requirement plain. Category 1(a) of Schedule I demands Environmental Clearance for all minor mineral extraction. The Jammu and Kashmir Environment Impact Assessment Authority exists for this purpose. Nobody had approached them, filled the forms, and conducted the studies.
The Environment and Forest Department tried to fix this. On March 4, 2025, they sent a letter to all Deputy Commissioners. They attached the 2024 Patna High Court judgment in Abhay Kumar versus Union of India. That court had struck down state notifications that tried to exempt topsoil quarrying for brick kilns. The judges called such exemptions illegal. They said these shortcuts violated the 1957 Act.
If brick kilns need proper clearance, how can DMOs hand out earth mining permissions like festival sweets?
I estimate the damage in Zadoora alone at fifty crores. The Mining Department claims they recovered twenty-six lakhs as compensation. The math tells its own story.
Multiply this across hundreds of villages, and then multiply it across years of unchecked loot.
I believe Jammu and Kashmir has lost ten thousand crores in the last four or five years. This covers only clay and earth mining. Riverbed mining would push the figure higher.
The karewas are not coming back. These formations took millions of years to create. They hold our water table steady and give our valley its distinctive look. Once the clay miners scrape them flat, they become useless wasteland.
Our watch and warden wing simply moves on to the next hill, files its reports, and prepares its findings.
Meanwhile, the trucks keep running at night.
I have a simple suggestion. The government should organise workshops bringing together Mining Department officials, Revenue officers, police and Flood Control staff.
They must be taught the law, shown the Supreme Court judgments and briefed on NGT rulings.
Above all, they must understand that signing illegal permissions makes them part of the problem.