A stormy meeting of brick kiln owners from all over Punjab was held at Ajuba Hotel in Patiala yesterday. Apart from District Sangrur President Harvinder Singh Sekhon, Chairman Kewal Krishan, Patron Prem Gupta, Secretary Ginni Gupta and Senior Vice President Pawan Kumar, presidents and other office bearers from 15 districts of Punjab participated in this meeting.
During the meeting, the problems of environment, stubble pellets and soil mining were discussed in detail. The brick kiln owners present said that it is the duty of every citizen to protect the environment, but the harassment being done to brick kiln owners in the name of environment will not be tolerated any more. The government has made it mandatory to use pellets made from stubble for baking bricks. Whereas the price of this ball is 3 times more than coal and it is not possible to make good bricks with the heat present in it. Secondly, an atmosphere of fear has been created among the kiln owners regarding digging soil to make bricks. The government asks to take environmental clearance for digging soil, but this is an expensive and lengthy process. The kiln owners demanded that the digging of only three-four feet for bricks should be kept out of the mining law. Talking in this regard, Sangrur President Harvinder Singh Sekhon said that if the government is concerned about the environment, then of course it should limit the time for running the kiln, but the kiln owners should be relieved from the rest of the unnecessary laws. Efforts were made to talk to the Punjab government at every level regarding these demands, but no result could be achieved. In this meeting, it was decided unanimously by the kiln owners by raising both hands that from August 11, 2025 to August 15, 2025, all the kilns in Punjab will stop selling bricks. If the kiln industry is not heard by the government even during this period, then the sale of bricks will be stopped indefinitely within Punjab from 1 September 2025.
At the same time, a meeting of the members of the District Malerkotla Brick Klin Owners Welfare Association was held at the Malerkotla Club under the chairmanship of President Rishav Garg. In this meeting, the decision taken by the brick-kiln owners across Punjab was discussed, under which it has been decided to stop the sale of bricks from August 11 to August 15. The association unanimously supported this decision. Chairman Rishav Garg along with Chairman Harkesh Mittal, Secretary Rakesh Garg (Longowalia), Abhinandan Garg, Kamalkant (Longowalia), Sachin Gupta, Manoj Singla, Pawan Kumar, Parminder Shahi, Abdul Hameed, Vishal Mittal, Gurmeet Bansal and Shiv Kumar and many other kiln owners were present in this meeting.
