Marble stones in Kishanjarh, Rajasthan. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Marble porridge landfill courtyard Kishangarh, Rajasthan, where bulldozers of clear parts that send him Morbi in Gujarat. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
ANDMit Parmar, 35 years old, his wife and five -year -old daughter travel from a bombay in Maharaštře to Bhiwani, their home town in Haryana. On their journey they stop in Kishangarh, the city in the Ajmer district, known equally for their Rajasthan school of miniature painting and marble.
Here, unexpectedly, a large white landscape is spread over 200 acres that seems snowy. Small hills shine almost blue and tourists and the influences of social media come here shooting videos. Except that temperatures in Kishangarh rise to more than 40 degrees Celsius in the summer, they have never immersed below freezing in winter.
White “snow” is waste generated during cutting and processing marble blocks and rocks and a huge landscape against the background of Aravali Mountains is a yard for marble porridge. The place, elevated to the snow yard, attracts thousands of tourists every month, especially in spring, the best season to visit Rajasthan.
“We learned about this place through Instagram coils. Some friends confirmed that it offered a view of sight,” says Parmar, entrepreneur. The family passes through marble porridge. When his daughter runs on a red toy for children operated by a team of local youth, Parmar cannot overcome the beauty of the place. “If we publish our pictures and videos on Instagram, do anyone believe it is not a snow field?” Parmar says. The family traveled by car from the bombai and visited the statue of Unity near Kevadia in Gujarat and Lake City in Udaipur before reaching Kishangarh.
Once a princely state in the Central Rajputany in British India known for its temples, Kishangarh today has the largest Asian marble and granite mandi (market), says Sampat Sharma, CEO of Kishangarh Marble Association. The rich availability of marble, granite and other stones in Rajasthan led to the establishment of about 1,200 marble cutting and processing units in the region.
However, a tourist hotspot, which has now become a shop for local residents, has appeared as a source of air, water and soil pollution. This began to influence the health of people who live in the vicinity and agriculture in this area. A study released at the beginning of this year, carried out within 15 km from marble waste waste, at the Central University of Rajasthan, is located 20 km in Bandar Sindri, and found the ways to happen.
Stone stories
Most marble units operate under the industrial area established by Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO), which launched operation in this area at the age of 80. The marble mandi has an annual turnover of 6,000 crore and employs about 25,000 workers drawn from different parts of the country. The units have different sizes and employ between 10 and 200 men. Thousands of others gain indirect jobs that benefit from the opportunity for livelihoods created by industry, such as transport and loading. The porridge is transported in the tankers to the landfill.
Sampat says that the marble units in Kishangarh send 20,000 tons of material to places such as Delhi, Pandjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Marble is obtained from quarries in Rajsamand, Chittorgarh, Banswara, Andhi and Jhiri – all in Rajasthan. The van from the Makran Makran, from which Agra’s Taj Mahal built in the 17th century by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, has shrunk because the reserves are almost over.
“The marble market is gradually taken over by granite due to changing customer preferences. In the collective daily net sale of 16 CRORE 16 pounds, some units send up to 80% granite,” he says.
While Rajasthane represents about 63% of the Earth’s marble sources, granite is obtained from Jalore and Sirohi and even imported from Vietnam and Italy for completion and delivery here.
Sampat says that Riico in 2003 assigned two land to a dumping yard, one of which is full. Marble porridge is a calcium carbonate generated during marble cutting and processing. The marble or granite radiation process produces 30-35% of waste. “The porridge includes 60% of the water that helps her settle in the ground where she is thrown away,” says Sampatat. It is transmitted to a landfill, about a kilometer away, every day in trucks.
Human and Planet’s health
Laxmi Kant Sharma, head of the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Central University of Rajasthan, who led the study, says that the toxic contamination of water resources in the area is reflected in the overall dissolved solids 10 times above the safe limits in the radius of six km. This had a serious impact on the yield of the crop. In addition, 25% of the respondent population has 100 lung -related diseases and a significant number of marble industry staff reported neck problems.
The Basant Bijarniya researcher says that because the waste particles are less than 75 micrometers, they could spread far and wide, which did not fill the soil. “The environmental impact will be felt in the long term. A few people may suffer from silicosis, which is not yet confirmed. The government must take immediate action to avoid getting out of hand,” he says.
In 2022, a previous research study found that crops in the Kishangarh then decreased by 2.58% and the area built increased by 3.5% to expand the marble industry. It was found that environmental parameters, including agricultural land, air and groundwater, were influenced.
Some marble units staff say they are on condition of anonymity that they have a “constant cough” while operating machines to cut marble blocks. “We don’t get masks from our employers. We just wrap a towel around our faces, but it seems insufficient,” says the factory worker.
Farmers in nearby villages, including Tokra, Bhojiyawas, Rahimpura, Phaloda, Mohanpura and Kali Dungri, point out that marble dust often settles on its agricultural soil and mixes irrigation water, which affects crop production. Yanglaram Chandeliya of Tokro Village says that the yield in his field has fallen by 60% since the use of the landfill started two decades ago.
Rajesh Gujjar, a farmer from the village of Mandawariya, says that groundwater is not suitable for drinking or irrigation because it contains fine marble particles that spread in the field. “Mainly we cultivated bayra and wheat, but due to a sharp decrease in agricultural production, several farmers are considering selling their land. They will have a choice but to work in marble units to earn a living,” Gujjar says.
While the owners of private hospitals in the region admit that diseases related to environmental pollution have increased, Dr. Parsa Ram Chaudhary, who is in charge of the government community health center in Kishangarh, says that such cases are not reported in the facility because of the distance of the city from the villages, although it is only about 15 km away.
Snow Tourism
Despite the fact that one of the dumping shipyards was full, the administration does not plan to move the place elsewhere or stop the influx of marble sludge. In fact, the State Government tourism department promoted him as a “breathtaking landscape”. Post of social media Ministry Vychvalová people to “explore the surrealistic, snow terrain that transformed this once living place into a magical goal.”
Hari Ram Ban, Sarpanch of Khatoli Panchayat, in whose jurisdiction Dumping Yard Falls, he says the soil has been assigned to the Riico Association of Marble and the administration has no role in his management. “There is no visible unfavorable impact on the environment. This place was built by Kishangarh on the national tourism map. We should be proud of it,” says Ban.
When the porridge has accumulated to the extent that it has created white plateaus and mountains, the Kishangarh marble association came up with an innovative model generation model. In 2016, she began charging a commercial shooting fee and has since used money for tree plantation, construction of roads and borders in the wasteland, deployment of security guards and creating basic equipment for visitors.
Bhagwan Singh, the Subedar in the Army, published in Bathinda, Pandjab, is on the “snow field” with his family, including his brother, who works at the Beawware Cement factory in Rajasthan. The family clicks on the photos in front of a large heart -shaped structure established by an association with a pond in the background. After taking pictures, they rest under the canopy.
“It looks like Kashmir. I could never imagine finding such a landscape in Rajasthan. I will be the center of attraction between my friends at school with these photos and videos,” says Singh’s daughter Bhumik Chauhan, 14 years old.
The locals hang between tourists and offer their photos with their own mobile phones with “photogenic angles” at the price. The couples became a hub for fashion shooting, music videos, demonstration photos and advertising movies. People fly drones with mounted cameras; Men represent as Bollywood actors, bend muscles or stare deep into the camera; Women and children wear dark glasses and take selfies.
For those who are walking and selfies, there is no entry fee, but it must get a free pass from the Kishangarh Marble Association, about a kilometer away. A visitor entering with a single digital camera must pay 500 GBP. Shooting before the wedding costs 5,100 GBP a day, while commercial shooting costs up to 21,000 GBP a day.
In 2015, the folding yard became a popular after the comedian Kapil Sharma came to make a song for his debut film KIS KIS KISS KISS PYAAR KAROON. The wedding photographers from Ajmer and Jaipur then started to bring couples here for demonstration. Some music companies Rajasthani and Punjabi also started using white hills and blue ponds for their song sequences. According to locals, these ponds are filled with authorities, which in turn, that it is a collected rainwater. Among the celebrities that appeared here are the Tiger Shroff for the song in Baaghi 3, Nora Fatehi for Chhor Dend, Sonakshi Sinha for Dabangg 3, Yo Honey Singh for Saiyaan Ji and Arijit Singh for Dhokha.
The Association issues annual bids for porridge deposits to be transported to Morbi in Gujarat to re -use in tiles and building materials in low -cost houses. While the trucks come in a small yard every day to interpret marble porridge, bulldozers work regularly to dig into the wastelands.
Mohammed.iqbal@thehind.co.in
Edit Sunalini Mathew
Published – April 12, 2025 20:23
