Budgam: The functioning of brick-kilns have made the lives of people pathetic, with they not only affecting the agriculture in Budgam but also the health of those who are living around
The locals said that with no concern for the life and health of labourers, many of them children, nor for the people and environment all around, more than 260 brick kilns in Budgam are going about their business “with utter, callous, and criminal disregard of every law and every inhabitant of the land, which they have turned as barren as the air that they have turned poisonous,” the locals said.
Of the nearly 300 brick kilns operating in Kashmir valley, more than 260 are located in Budgam district alone.
The brick kiln operators are fearlessly violating labour laws by employing children and by exposing labourers to hazards not just to their health but also to their lives. “There have been several instances of labourers falling into furnaces while working. There is no assessment of the respiratory diseases they have become afflicted with, or the damage they have suffered to their eyes, their skin, their limbs, to their general sense of well-being and mental health,” they said.
The black smoke billowing out from the hundreds of chimneys has affected human life all around, and the environment, the flora and fauna. People living near the brick kilns have become afflicted with deadly diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis, lung cancer, urinary tract disorder, skin allergy, and infections in eyes.
“These illegal brick kilns have acquired hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile agricultural land and turned it all barren,” locals rued.
People who live around the brick kilns spoke out strongly against them. A local said that the thick smoke coming out of the chimneys hovered over the town in the morning as well as in the evening.
“The kiln workers work in precarious conditions and several workers have fallen into the furnace while working. They even keep working in the scorching sun, while the chimneys churn out thick smoke containing soot,” he said.
The locals asked the district administration to look into the matter and do the needful, “we are requesting the higher-ups to look into the matter and get this menace, which is now turning destructive, out of the district,” locals demanded.
