Jhumpura: Illegal sand mining is going on from the Aradei riverbed in Jhumpura tehsil of Keonjhar district.
The mined sand is being transported by the mafia in tractors. Despite complaints, revenue department officials are not taking action to stop the illegal mining of sand.
Taking advantage of the inaction, the leaseholders of Katalpasi ghat are carrying out illegal sand mining with impunity. Even though their lease area is just 12 acres, they are mining sand in areas beyond that limit.
The leaseholders are not sparing even the banks of the river and as a result the banks have developed huge craters making the place a deathtrap. Due to sand mining on the banks many big trees have been uprooted, locals said.
A complaint was lodged with the police after a fight between villagers and the leaseholders. Even though the district administration intervened it was not effective.
As the leaseholders were mining sand outside their lease area, the tehsil office penalised them for illegally mining 16,000 cubic metres of sand.
But the penalty imposed by the administration has not been paid so far. The tehsil office issued notices to the leaseholders regarding this, but has not taken action against them.
The villagers intercepted six sand-laden tractors Sunday and informed Jhumpura revenue officials. After this, revenue inspector Hrudananda Sahoo reached the spot, but he was three hours late. The RI said he was busy.
Before the RI came three tractors were forcibly taken away from the villagers and driven back to the riverbed. Even though the RI was aware that the tractor drivers had taken away the vehicles by threatening the villagers he kept quiet. He just took pictures of the mined sand and went back to his office, the locals allged.
“I will inform the tehsildar,” the RI had said.
“We had issued notices to the leaseholders asking them to deposit the penalty. We will issue another notice soon. If we find that the leaseholders are involved in illegal sand mining, action will be taken against them,” said Tehsildar Janak Nayak.
PNN
