Jajpur: The district administration has served a demand notice of Rs 58.62 crore on the leaseholder of Dankari hill under Dharmasala tehsil over illegal extraction of black granite stones from the hill over the last 13 years.
Acting on the direction of the district collector, the Dharmasala tehsildar issued a letter (1878, dated May 28, 2016) to leaseholder Sribas Jena of Saroi village.
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The tehsildar has asked the leaseholder to deposit the money within a fortnight of receipt of the letter, failing which suitable legal action will be initiated against him.
The administration woke up to the matter of illegal extraction of stones from Dankari hill that has been going on without forest and environmental clearance after reports appeared in Orissa Post and Oriya daily Dharitri.
The district administration sought a report on the illegal extraction of stones from the deputy director of mines, Jajpur Road.
District collector Satya Kumar Mallick in his letter (5547, dated-December 3, 2015) had asked the deputy director of mines to probe into the actual revenue loss and other losses incurred by state government by forming a special squad comprising tehsil and mine officials.
A special squad led by mining officer Asit Kumar Behera conducted a measurement of the extracted portion of Dankari hill in the second week of January and submitted a detailed report (514, dated March 15, 2016) to the collector .
The squad in its report stated that over 73, 38,012.50 cubic metre of the hill has been excavated by the leaseholder for extraction of black stones. The leaseholder extracted the stones between 2002-03 and November, 2015.
During this period, he had extracted over 14,15,996 cubic metre of black stones from the hill while depositing only Rs 6.64 crore towards revenue. The leaseholder has evaded revenue for 59, 22,016.5 cubic metre excavated on the hill.
Accordingly, the total estimated revenue loss stood at Rs 58,62,79,633.50.
According to reports, Jena was granted the lease for five years in 2012 to extract 500 metre of black granite stones from the hill.
Later, the quarry area was expanded and Jena started extracting 1.20 lakh metre of stones from the hill without obtaining forest and environmental clearance. PNN
