I recently happened to visit many small villages in the Badgam district and was horrified to witness the pollution caused by the countless brick-kilns that dot the landscape there. It is a mockery of our so called "Pollution Control Board" to allow such needless destruction of our precious agriculture lands.
Every single country in the world has laws to protect prime agriculural lands from being used for anything other than agricultural activity. What is surprising is that in Kashmir we have similar strict laws regarding changing the use of agricultural lands. It seems that just like every other laws that give any semblance of a government functioning in Kashmir, this law is only good on paper and not really enforceable since there really is no government functioning in Kashmir.
The powers to change the land-use of a certain piece of agricultural land lies with the revenue deoartment and as we know that means the Patwari of a certain area has to make the decision. Needless to say we know that Patwaris are the most corrupt of all officials. It saddens me that the future of our fragile environment lies with the corrupt Patwaris