The miseries of the stone quarries in Yamunangar district in Haryana continues unabated. With the royalty fees for the stone crusher operators being hiked five times, it has increased the cost of material, thereby rendering the stone crushers uncompetitive.
The royalty fees have been increased as a result of the higher auction bid for mining in Yamunanagar area.
Amit Bansal from Jai Mata Stone Crusher, one of the stone crushers in the region maintained that the 120-odd stone quarries in the region were suffering because of rise in royalty fees.
As against earlier royalty of Rs 0.50 per cubic feet, now the stone crushers are paying royalty of Rs 2.50 per cubic feet. The five times increase in royalty has forced the stone quarries to raise the price of products, which includes stone aggregates and stone dust.
Despite the fact that with government spending a lot on the infrastructure front and large number of projects coming to areas, especially north of Delhi, it was an opportunity to latch, but the high royalty prices imposed on stone quarries has left them a hapless lot.
The material coming from Uttar Pradesh is being supplied at 25-30 per cent lesser rate as compared to Yamunanagar thus affecting their business. At present the crushers are running at less than 50 per cent capacity.
More From This Section
Similarly Sanjeev Chaudhary from Jai Krishna Stone Crusher also maintained higher royalty fees were rendering the stone crushers in the region uncompetitive.
Sanjeev maintained that earlier when the royalty fees were low , the stone crushers were doing brisk business in regions like Panipat, Kaithal and Karnal but now the higher prices had narrowed down the area of operation for the stone crushers in Yamunanagar.
Yamunanagar district has 120 stone crushers and 150 screening plants with annual turnover of Rs 100-120 crore, with industry registering annual growth of 20 per cent.