Chadheidhara: Separate teams of Dharmasala tehsil administration conducted raids Thursday afternoon and verified the previously leased out black stone mines located on Dankari hill of Jajpur district.
A source said that areas accorded for carrying out mining activities were measured to find out the exactness of deviation, if any. The task force captured photos of the stone mines through drone camera.
“It was part of our routine exercise,” a senior tehsil official informed.
Teams led by Dharmasala tehsildar Swagat Das comprised several others namely additional tehsildar Debi Prasanna Mohanty, geologist Santoshiprava Sethi, environment engineer Dibyalochan Mohapatra, local revenue inspectors (RIs) Manas Bej and Jagabandhu Jena.
Some lessees have been indiscriminately excavating the black stone and allegedly transporting those to elsewhere inside and outside the district. As a result, mafias handsomely earn profit; on the contrary, the state government loses revenue worth crores of rupees.
In order to curb illegal mining of the black stone on Dankari hill, a task force formed by the Jajpur district Collector conducts raids and checks measurement of the leased out mine areas from time to time.
There are as many as nine black stone quarries on the much-debated Dankari hill which measures around 500-acre and two of those alone have been leased out by tehsil administration for mining purpose.
PNN
