Magh 11, Kathmandu. ‘…In the south of Lalitpur, one village and a community forest are being excavated by crushers and stone miners from all sides. There is no government agency where the locals have not complained about this, but no one is able to take action,’ said the then media journalist Rabi Lamchiane in the television program ‘Sidha Kura’ on 26 Mangsir 2078. They are openly saying….’
All three Lamichhane led the Rashtriya Swatantra Party and now as Home Minister along with the Deputy Prime Minister, they also made a ministerial decision to close the illegal crushers on 20th Poush
However, the cabinet meeting in which Lamichhane participated on Wednesday decided to allow the closed crushers to run until June. According to Home Minister Lamichhane’s communication coordinator Navraj Pandey, the registered crushers have been given a deadline of the end of June to meet the criteria. 
Construction businessman Vikram Pandey, who is the urban development minister in the cabinet led by Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, had discussed the opening of the crusher in the cabinet meeting on Friday in a meeting with the officials of the Federation of Nepal Construction Professionals and assured that it would be opened soon. He argued that if the crusher is not opened, the development work will be stopped. However, after the Home Minister’s decision to close the illegal crushers on Poush 20, the work on the major development projects started to stop.
The Ministry of Home Affairs was not unaware of the impact it would create in the future when it hastily decided to shut down all crushers that were not registered and renewed. The sudden closure of the crushers is not a hidden issue, the actions of the crusher businessmen in the past and the opaque working style shown by the government officials from the ministers.
In Kartik 2077, the then Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa also sent a letter to the administration offices through the Ministry of Home Affairs to close illegal crushers after discussing with Energy Minister Varshman Pun, Industry Minister Lekhraj Bhatt, Forest Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet and others. On Kartik 25, 2077, the district administration offices were asked to send the monitoring report of all illegal crushers to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
If the Ministry of Home Affairs had not taken a stand at that time, all the illegal crusher industries that are against the standards would have been shut down or they would have been operating within the scope of the law. However, the inner aim of the then Home Minister Badal was not to make the crusher comply with the standards. The decisions at that time confirmed that the purpose of loosening the standards was to show the destruction of the construction materials generated after the closure of the crusher.
The then Home Minister’s plan to create custom standards for the crusher industry was scrapped on 5 Poush 2077 after the then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli dissolved the Parliament. The then Home Minister Thapa had agreed to open the closed industries in a fluid political situation.
Lamchiane also adopted Badal’s style after becoming the Home Minister. First, they decided to close the crusher, and on the pretext of giving time to meet the standards, they gave a deadline until Ashad, saying that the project was affected. Now the industries should be transferred according to the standards by Ashad. The Home Minister’s Secretariat has also said that it has been decided that unregistered crushers will not be allowed to run and that project crushers should be closed after the completion of the project.
However, officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs say that it is only a ‘stunt’ to say that unregistered crushers are automatically illegal.
“There are no unregistered industries, three of them do not have legal recognition,” says an official of the Home Office.
However, despite being registered, the government has allowed the crusher industry, which is violating laws and standards, to run again in the old style. “In the past, decisions were made in such an opaque manner,” says the official, “Even now, the crushers were closed for a few days to create an environment where there was a shortage of stone aggregates and to allow the crushers to continue to run in violation of the standards.”
He said that it is certain that after the next Dashain, more time will be given for another year. “After Ashad, the crusher does not run for the whole year, after the winter, there is another drama to extend the deadline for the illegal,” he says, “This is what has been happening forever.” 
According to the stone, gravel, sand mining, sale and management standards issued on Shrawan 5, 2077, the industry can be operated by registering the crusher only five hundred meters away from the ‘right of way’ of rivers or river banks, concrete bridges and highways and historical lakes, ponds, and reservoirs.
Similarly, there is a rule that crusher industry cannot be operated within 2 km from dense settlements, forests, parks and reserves, international borders, educational institutions, places of religious, historical, archeological importance and offices of security agencies. Crusher industry cannot be operated even within 200 meters from the power transmission line and 1500 meters from the foot of Chure hill. However, now all the crushers are not following this standard.
So far, crusher industries are getting immunity even though they have not obeyed the law. That is why the crusher industry is extracting stones and sand from rivers and streams using machines against the rules.
Monitoring in name alone has not forced the crusher industries to obey the law. It has been going on for years to shut down for a few days or allow it to run easily after paying some fines. Moreover, the work of allowing crushers to move according to industry standards by giving a deadline of June every year has been going on for 9 years.
In the year 2071, after the operation standards of the crusher industry came, the existing industries could not meet the standards until there was space. However, keeping in mind the environment after the earthquake, then Finance Minister Ramsharan Mahat announced through the budget that it would be automatically renewed for one year.
Then the then Industry Minister Mahesh Basnet also made a policy decision to renew the crusher industry for one more year. After 2073, crusher industries have not been renewed. The appeal filed by the businessmen against the standards was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 9 Chaitra 2077.
However, the Supreme Court gave directives to study how many crushers and sand processing industries are operating in which district, how many of them are legal or illegal, and prepare records for each. The order of the Supreme Court was to make a separate list of those industries which were registered but did not meet the standards and those which were operating without registration.
And the Supreme Court also ordered to close down the industries that are running without registration and to make those who are not registered and meet the standards by giving them a certain period to meet the standards. However, the Supreme Court ordered that even if the industry was given an opportunity, it should be abolished.
However, the new Congress-led government formed in Asadh 2078 decided to automatically make the existing standards legal by revising the existing standards in the name of giving illegal crushers a chance to become legal. The cabinet meeting on 6th Asadh 2079 decided to relax the standards to be followed by crushers by giving one more year.
By revising the standards, the government reduced the limit of not being able to operate the crusher industry within two kilometers of densely populated and forest areas and within 500 meters of the highway. The government had revised the standards and tried to give legitimacy to crusher industries established near densely populated areas, forest areas, highways, transmission lines etc.
However, advocate Padam Bahadur Shrestha filed a petition against the decision of such revision of the standard, which was harmful to the environment, making the office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers the opposition. On Asadh 16, hearing the writ, the Supreme Court gave an interim order not to implement the government’s decision to revise the standards.
The joint bench of Judges Kumar Regmi and Hariprasad Phuyal revised the previous criteria and held that there is a situation of irreparable damage in the event of a serious crisis even on the existence of important areas connected to the life of the nation such as highways, rivers or river banks.
Even after that, the crusher operators have been saying that the standards of the crusher industry are not practical, and if all the standards are met, the industry will not be able to operate. The Chief District Officers have also been submitting their reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
This government’s decision to allow illegal crushers to operate until June has confirmed that this government is not interested in making legal arrangements so that natural resources are not exploited and there is no shortage of river construction materials.
Experts suggest that a long-term solution should be found considering the timeliness of the existing laws, from the environmental impact created by the crushers, the problems of industries, access to the market, and the impact on consumer prices. Dr. Expert in natural resources and Chure area. Vinod Bhatt sees the need for a strong government policy on quarrying, transportation and marketing of stone and gravel sand rather than Pat’s decision.
“There is no excuse for wrongdoing. It is appropriate for all parties to sit together and find a long-term solution to the problems caused by illegal crushers and the questions of the crusher industry,” says Bhatt.
