Chikiti: Tension ran high after residents of this tehsil in Ganjam district had a face-off with illegal sand miners Tuesday over smuggling of sand to Andhra Pradesh. The sand was mined from the Bahuda riverbed near the village.
The villagers burnt tyres and blocked the Pandri-Chikiti Main Road for five hours demanding immediate intervention of the district administration and police. The blockade disrupted traffic and hundreds of vehicles were left stranded.
The protesters said while smugglers were growing rich by illegally transporting sand to the neighbouring state, the district administration was losing revenue worth crores of rupees due to indifference.
Moreover, the rampant sand mining has led to fears of floods here as it is seriously damaging the environment.
The sand mining has been going on with earthmoving equipment even though the National Green Tribunal had ordered not to use them for sand extraction, the villagers said.
K Nuagaon IIC Sujit Kumar Nayak, Chikiti OIC Ramakrushna Das and Additional Tehsildar Shakti Prasad Srichandan reached the spot and tried to dissuade people from holding up traffic. Ultimately, the villagers relented after the officials assured them of steps to curb sand mining.
The villagers said rampant sand mining employing earthmoving equipment had shrunk the riverbed and smugglers were carrying on their illegal business with impunity as the authorities have refused to act.
The villagers fear that if urgent measures are not taken to stop sand mining the villages on the riverbank might soon get submerged.
The additional tehsildar rejected the charge of indifference and said that penalty is being collected from the illegal sand laden vehicles every week by Revenue Inspectors.
He said an amount of Rs 46 lakh was collected as penalty between April 2017 and March 2018 and Rs 20 lakh between April 2018 and October 2018.
PNN