Daily Times

LAHORE: The Supreme Court (SC), while hearing a case related to the depletion of Katas Raj pond in Chakwal on Monday, prohibited cement factories from extracting groundwater from the site and penalised a cement factory by ordering it to pay Rs 100 million to the dam fund.

Reportedly, a two-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Mian Saqib Nisar directed D.G. Khan Cement Company Limited to deposit Rs80 m as payment for water usage by the factory and pay an additional Rs20 m penalty for attempting to mislead the apex court.

Earlier, a suo motu case was taken up by the SC following media reports that the Katas Raj temple pond, considered sacred by Hindus, was drying out. The pond was said to have depleted due to operations of several cement factories in the area which had sucked out the underground water.

In Monday’s hearing, a special committee ordered by the court in the last hearing to visit the DG Cement factory in Chakwal to determine how it stored water, submitted its report to the court. “We are stopping the water supply of cement factories. Factory owners say they collected rainwater but are not telling the truth and extracted groundwater through tube wells,” remarked the CJP in response.

“Cement factories will not extract groundwater,” the bench ruled. “Cement factories will have to pay a fine for the groundwater they have used till now,” it added.

The top court took notice of media reports pertaining to the Katas Raj pond drying up in November last year. During the earlier hearings, the bench was informed that nearby cement factories had sucked up large quantities of groundwater through a number of drill bores and the bores had severely reduced subsoil water levels and affected water usage of domestic users, as well as causing the pond’s water levels to drop.

CJP Justice Saqib Nisar had remarked in an earlier hearing of the case that cement factories in vicinity of Katas Raj were not just damaging the environment by depleting the area’s water reserves but were also causing air pollution. “The people who are not doing anything for water are not sincere with this country; those taking no measures for water provision are enemies of this country,” the CJP had remarked.

Justice Nisar had said factory owners had used influence to obtain permission to establish cement factories in the vicinity of the temple. He had admonished former industries secretary Khalid Sherdil ‘for giving away everything for free’. However, the official responded that a no-objection certificate was not a requirement when the factories were established. The CJP had noted that the factories had not taken any measures to resolve the issues voluntarily and the owners just cared about accumulating profit.

Published in Daily Times, November 20^th 2018.