Bolangir: Mineral mafia has a free hand on the outskirts of Bolangir town lifting murram worth crores of rupees. The minerals are being transported in night using trucks, tractors and other heavy vehicles.
It was alleged that there is a well-oiled racket involved in these illegal activities. Even as such massive smuggling of murram takes place from areas not far from the district headquarters and the tehsil office, causing enormous losses to the state exchequer, the authorities have failed to take note of this.
This reeks of involvement of some officials of the tehsil office. The minerals are excavated from acres of government land between Kamakhyanagar in Khujenpali and new Bolangir.
The mafia is found looting the minerals using heavy vehicles even during the day. Excavation of murram has resulted in formation of huge craters.
Surprisingly, the tehsil office has no information about the illegal activities and the people involved in the racket. Middlemen and contractors are actively involved in the smuggling.
The excuse given is the murram is excavated for its use in levelling of roads and land. Nevertheless, lifting of murram in such a large scale has raised questions on the sincerity of the tehsil officials and the higher authorities.
Even though these are government land, wire-fencing is done around these areas—indicating the involvement of land mafia. They sell these precious government lands and earn crores of rupees.
The land mafia allegedly gets open support from the tehsil office, sub-register office and local police. Significantly, the land from where the murram mining is taking place was identified for District Collector’s office.
The land mafia became more active after it was announced that the Collector’s office would come up at this place. The government would have to spend crores of rupees on filling of these craters created by excavation of murram.
Tehsildar Maghaban Bag said a team has been formed to visit these areas and submit a report. He assured that action would be taken against the wrongdoers.
PNN
