Nilagiri: The stone mafia has allegedly been clearing trees and mining stone from inside Kuladiha sanctuary under Nilagiri forest subdivision in Balasore, a report said.
“Forest officials and stone mafia have formed an unholy nexus pushing the illegal stone quarrying, thus posing threat to the wildlife. Local people have apprised the authorities about illegal stone mining, but no tangible results were found,” lamented Mahendra Mallick of Kesharipur under Soro police limits.
Locals pointed out that entry to the sanctuary is banned, but shockingly the stone mafia has laid a road by cutting trees inside the sanctuary and transport illegally excavated stone out of it every day.
Shyamsundar Kisku, a resident of Salachua, said a resident of Mulasingh in Sora area has set up a stone crushing unit at Budu and had dumped stone here. Stone crushing created problem for Kishu.
Locals had strongly opposed it, but no action was taken.
Upset over it, over a hundred people had detained a truck carrying stone from Salachua area. Forest officials were intimated a forest official about it over cell phone. Later, Balasore DFO was intimated about it. Some forest official had come at 5 pm. But by then, a stone mafia had taken away the truck from the clutches of the people.
People of Soro have filed a complaint with police station. “Police did not register a case. Police had asked the stone mafia and villagers to come to the police station Thursday to settle the issue,” alleged Niranjan Mallick.
Notably, Kuladiha had been declared a sanctuary in 1984.
The state government had closed down all stone quarries in 2010 inside the sanctuary following a directive from the NGT.
Soro tehsildar had stopped leasing out two quarries. However, illegal stone mining has been going on inside the sanctuary, locals alleged.
Truckloads of stone are being transported out of the sanctuary.
Ranger Laxman Kumar Pradhan denied illegal stone mining. He said locals had demanded money from lease holders, but the latter refused to pay.
Upset over this, locals have raised the issue of illegal stone mining. Hemanata Mohapatra of Soro had taken a quarry on lease. Mohapatra said that he has been carrying stone on the road through the sanctuary.
However, the tehsil made it clear that no quarry inside the sanctuary has been leased out.
PNN