Jajpur: The fate of the country’s fourth largest oil storage depot near Dankari hill in Chandikhole has been pushed into uncertainty with the district administration allegedly dilly-dallying in providing land for the project.
This has happened as it is yet to take steps to close down the illegal black stone (granite) quarries on the hill and collect additional outstanding revenue of Rs 58.62 crore.
The district administration is also trying to hoodwink the state government saying it will face an annual revenue loss of Rs 1413.86 lakh if an oil depot comes in the place of stone quarries.
It is alleged that illegal miners without having environmental clearance have extracted black stone worth several crore from the hill under Dharmasala tehsil in Jajpur district in connivance with over 20 tehsildars from 2002 to 2015.
The concerned tehsildars did not open their mouth and allowed the miners a free run to extract granite from the hill. It has been two and half years since the district administration issued a demand notice to the illegal miners to pay Rs 58,62,79,633 towards additional revenue but it is yet to collect the amount as a case regarding it is pending in the Dharmasala tehsil court.
Sources said after being apprised of the illegal mining, the then collector Satya Kumar Mallick (Letter 5547, dated 3.12.2015) directed the Dharmasala tehsildar and deputy director, mines, Jajpur Road, to conduct a joint probe into the revenue loss and other loss to the government and report to him.
A technical team led by mining officer Asit Kumar Behera surveyed the operational mines on Dankari hill in January, 2016 and submitted a report (Letter 514, dated March 15, 2016) to the collector.
The report had said 73, 38,012.50 cubic metre area on the hill has been dug up for extraction of granite. A leaseholder, Sribas Jena of Saroi village, was extracting the granite from the hill. It was found out that Jena had extracted black stone by digging up 14,15,996 cubic metre of hill area for which he had deposited only Rs 6.64 lakh as revenue. The additional revenue of Rs 58.62 lakh outstanding has been made on granite extraction over 59, 22,016.5 cubic metre area on the hill.
Notably, Jena had obtained the lease for extraction of 500 MT granite stone from the hill for five years beginning 2012 without environmental clearance. The State Pollution Control Board had asked him to obtain environmental clearance August 18, 2014. However, Jena, instead of complying with the order, used wagon drilling methods to extract granite from the mines.
As a result, large craters were formed on the hill. There were 17 tehsildars from 2000 to 2016 but all of them turned a blind eye to the illegality. Later, Jena was asked to pay up the additional revenue following which he filed a petition in the High Court praying for a stay order.
The High Court directed the then collector to make further assessment of the revenue loss but since then no further steps have been taken in this regard. When contacted, tehsildar Seetal Agarwal said she could comment on the issue only after examining the documents.
PNN
