One October morning last year, a yellow L&T excavator rolled into Kralwari village in central Kashmir’s Budgam district and started tearing into the Doodh Ganga. 

The machine worked with industrial efficiency, scooping out sand, gravel, and boulders, loading truck after truck. 

Village residents watched in silence. They had seen this before. The Doodh Ganga, a trout-bearing stream that supplies drinking water to seven hundred thousand people in Srinagar, was being hollowed out again.

I happened to be in the area that day. 

The District Mineral Officer had issued a short-term permit to a contractor, allowing this work to proceed. The officer either missed or ignored a Supreme Court judgment delivered seven months earlier that banned exactly this type of activity without prior Environmental Clearance. 

He also seemed unaware that the National Green Tribunal had already prohibited mining in this specific stream and imposed a penalty of roughly sixteen lakh rupees on contractors operating there.

This single incident captures a much larger failure. 

Kashmir’s rivers and streams have faced systematic looting by mining operations using heavy machinery for years. The damage extends far beyond environmental harm. It represents economic theft on a massive scale, administrative collapse, and the erosion of public trust in institutions meant to protect common resources.

I have spent five years documenting this crisis. Through the J&K Climate Action Group, I have filed........

© Kashmir Observer