Koraput: The district administration here has warned to impose penalty 20 times more than the royalty of Rs 35 per cubic metre (CM) of sand for illegal sand mining from the sand quarries in Koraput district, sources said Thursday. The matter came to the fore at a meeting organised by the district administration to implement an order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) over illegal sand mining. The meeting by the district administration was held at the conference hall of the district Collectorate, Wednesday.
ADM (Revenue) Rameshwar Pradhan presided over the meeting attended by district revenue officer Sagarika Sarangi, ACF Uma Mahesh, superintending engineer Satyanarayan Khura, the regional deputy director of mines and the tehsildars of all tehsils in the district. Illegal sand mining has led to the destruction of environment in the concerned areas of the community. It is resulting in soil erosion which is having adverse effects on the environment.
Expressing concern over the development, a petitioner from Gujarat had filed a case before the tribunal. The tribunal heard the matter and asked the district Collector to take steps in this regard. The meeting dwelt upon the means and ways for stringent implementation of the NGT order to curb illegal sand mining in the district. The ADM asked all the tehsildars to take steps for the same in their respective areas.
According to the NGT order illegal sand mining from any sand quarries in the district will invite penalty 20 times more than the royalty of Rs 35 per CM of sand which is Rs 761 as fixed by the state government. The penalty collected will be deposited in the district fund of the green tribunal, the ADM said.
Moreover, the concerned tehsildars were also asked to recover royalty on sand mining which will be deposited in the district revenue fund. There are around 43 sand quarries in eight blocks of the district. Among those, 14 quarries are in Borigumma, three in Boipariguda, four in Kotpad, 13 in Kundura, six in Jeypore, one in Bandhugaon, one in Nandapur and another in Lakshmipur blocks.