PESHAWAR: Sitting on a ramshackle wooden cot amidst huge boulders of white marble at a compound on Warsak Road in Peshawar, Sharif Gul is facing a dilemma to shift his unit to a new site in the adjacent Mohmand tribal district for reasons of environmental degradation in the vicinity.

Sharif, 65, hailing from Mohmand tribal district, had installed marble and granite processing unit on Warsak Road about five years ago. “I had set up this unit with an estimated cost of Rs30 million. Now, shifting the unit to Mohmand Marble City (MMC) would cost additional Rs30 million,” he said, looking perplexed.

The most discouraging factor for investors which Sharif believes is location of MMC that lies some 20 kilometres north of Peshawar.

“Dealers from down parts of the country especially Punjab who fearlessly visit Warsak Road will not take risk to go to Mohmand, because of security reasons,” he says.

Owners suspect area along Warsak Road being cleared for housing society

Squeezed between the tribal districts of Bajaur and Khyber, Mohmand tribal district has vast deposits of variety of marbles. Official documents claim that Mohmand district has approximately 845 million tonnes of good quality marble deposits available in super white, grey and silky colour alone.

Keeping in view the huge potential, the defunct Fata Development Authority designed marble city in Mohmand in 2008. Land measuring 350 acres was acquired for the marble city for processing marble products by using state-of-the-art technology to meet international standard.

The government has spent Rs1.5 billion on the site development and provision of allied facilities including electricity at MMC. The project could not take off due to multiple reasons mainly militancy. The writ of state has been fully restored but future of MMC still hangs in balance and investors are reluctant to move their investment there.

After merger of erstwhile Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the provincial industry department took over control of MMC. The KP government has now given the status of special economic zone to MMC and included it China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Entrepreneurs and investors find Warsak Road, which leads to Mohmand and Bajaur tribal districts, the most suitable location to invest their money in the marble sector. The road passes through green fields, residential colonies and educational institutions. The area quickly emerged as an unplanned hub of marble, granite and other mineral processing units.

Statistics provided by provincial chapter of All Pakistan Industry Association show that more than 350 marble and granite factories are currently functioning along both sides of Warsak Road. Each factory has capacity to process approximately 20,000 square feet marble per month amid uninterrupted and poor power supply.

Unplanned and mushroom growth of marble factories resulted in ecological issues in the vicinity causing air, water and land pollution. Milky slush discharged from marble factories drains into water bodies and irrigation channels without treatment.

Residue and dust from marble cutting and processing have settled on the entire locality, potentially changing its surface look. Provincial Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other relevant departments ignored unplanned industrial activities in the area that now resulted in a conflict between biodiversity and investment.

“Unchecked growth in marble factories has badly affected ecological system of the area and fertile agricultural lands are being converted into industrial activities,” says Salman Khattak, who owns a small dairy farm and a piece of farmland on Warsak Road.

“Marble factories are not only swallowing agricultural lands but effluents discharged from these units without treatment are contaminating the remaining lands,” he remarks.

EPA, local government and other departments did not bother to take action to regulate industrial activities in the area. The government woke up after damage was done to the ecology.

Chief Minister Mahmood Khan took notice of the issue when a lot of water flowed under the bridge. He issued directives three months ago to shift all marble factories from Warsak Road and Shabqadar to MMC.

The government has offered grant-in-aid and offered plots at concessional rates to the factory owners, who would voluntarily shift their units to the economic zone.

The owners, however, rejected offer and announced that they would not shift factories to the new site unless government gave them proper compensation. The decision about shifting factories to Mohmand is in limbo as suspicious locals and factory owners abound that the area is being cleared for mega housing scheme being planned by a top property tycoon of the country.

The government has passed the buck to KP Economic Zone Development and Management Company to work out strategy to pacify the owners to shift their factories to the new marble city.

“KPEZDMC will only put up its recommendations to the government and the chief minister would make final decision whether to shift factories to the new location or not,” said an official of the company. He said that some of the owners were willing to shift their factories to Mohmand.

Experts admit that marble factories are causing enormous damage to environment. EPA Director General Amjad Ali told Dawn that marble factories were major cause of air, noise and land pollution in the area. He said that local farmers were complaining and EPA was taking action against factories’ owners under the environment laws to contain pollution.

“Effluents discharge from the marble factories are posing sever threat to aquatic life in the water bodies and farmlands in downstream,” he said, but admitted that EPA did not have data to determine scale of ecological issues.

Imtiaz Ahmad, a resident of Mathra, said that aquatic life including fish and turtles had vanished since marble’s waste was drained into water bodies. He said that sediment released from marble factories was directly deposited in fields that badly affected yield of crops.

The director general of agriculture extension, Dr Abdul Rauf, said that sediments from the marble factories disturbed soil structure while level of pH, a scale used to specify acidity of an aqueous solution, was already high in Peshawar.

The association president Himmat Khan said that Mohmand Marble City did not have the capacity to accommodate all factories. “Owners will not be able to bear huge financial losses to move factories to Mohmand which does not have sufficient space and safe environment for investment,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2021