Champua: Sand is illegally mined from various ghats of rivers in Champua tehsil of Keonjhar district. Despite raids on sand mafia and imposition of penalties on then, illegal mining has not yet been curbed in the area. The administration has devised a new initiative to check such rampant sand mining. The
Revenue officials have dug trenches on different routes leading to river ghats to prevent the tractors and other vehicles from entering the riverbeds. Tehsildar Saisasmita Hota wanted to put a curb on the sand mining and had directed additional tehsildar, Ramesh Chandra Nayak, to dig trenches on the routes used by sand mafia to shift sand. In the initial phase, trenches were dug up near sand mines at Sarei and Adhangapal.