Keonjhar: With devices fitted with thousands of trucks and tippers failing to receive Global Positioning System (GPS) signals across the state, transporters gheraoed the office of the Keonjhar mining circle here Friday.
They accused the mines department of having shown undue favouritism to seven agencies which have supplied them substandard GPS devices.
The tracking of mineral transportation has been affected in 14 mining circles while they have been incurring losses due to badly hit mineral transportation, the transporters fumed.
Over a 100 tuck owners rushed to the mining office to enquire about the mess. They clamoured for action against the GPS device supplying agencies.
“As the department has shown undue favour to the suppliers, no action is being taken against the latter,” the transporters alleged.
As the stalemate continues, over 10,000 trucks and tippers were stranded on roadsides, they lamented.
GPS was introduced from October 1, 2016 while seven agencies were authorised to supply the devices. The devices were fixed with over 56,000 trucks in 14 mining circles of the state, while 16,000 trucks and tippers in Joda and Keonjhar were tagged with GPS. The devices fixed in vehicles enable the government to track mineral transportation through Odisha Space Application Centre.
The transporters stormed into the Keonjhar mining circle office when officials were holding discussions with the deputy director of Joda mining circle through video conferencing. The agitated truck owners stopped the video conferencing.
Members of Keonjhar Truck Owners’ Association said they were badly affected by the GPS snag.
Many truck owners like Debu Patnaik, Dillip Panda, Babula Ghose, Rudra Mishra, Bibhuti Rout, Nihar Ranjan Das and Sanjay Singh alleged that here has been a huge scam in the supply of GPS devices.
Officials of the mining department were involved in receiving kickbacks from the supply agencies, who sold the devices at a higher price, they alleged.
They said the price of a GPS device is Rs 3,500, but truck owners were made to cough up Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 per unit.
“The authorised vendors fixed the devices, but are not now found to fix the problem,” the transporters said.
Sushant Kumar Nayak, deputy director of Joda mining circle, and Dhruba Charan Nayak, deputy director of Keonjhar mining circle, said GPS vendors are being contacted to sort out the problem.
“I have no power to allow mineral transportation without GPS tracking. Steps will be taken only on directions of the higher-ups,” Nayak added.
PNN