RAYAGADA: Violating the directives of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on environmental clearance, rampant illegal mining of minor minerals is going on in the district.
According to sources, 23 stone and 13 sand quarries have been leased out under Rayagada revenue circle. Out of those, six lease holders have not submitted their environment clearance (EC) certificate while two are yet to submit mining plan to the Steel and Mining department.
Most of the lease holders in connivance with the revenue officials are exploiting the natural resources. To extract more materials within the lease period, they use machineries to go beyond the permissible depth and width. They also cheat the Government in different ways to continuously expand the mining area. Most of the stone quarries are overmined in the district.
Locals alleged that a lease holder obtained licence for extracting stone from Goganda-1 quarry in Kuli village under Rayagada revenue circle last year. He was allowed to excavate only 1260 cm per year but taking advantage of lack of supervision, he is managing to excavate more than 300 cm daily. Though the lease holder does not have blasting permission, villagers of Kuli alleged that the stone blasting is rampant in the area.
The villagers alleged that the lease holders are not paying any heed to the guidelines of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). After leasing out mining sites, the departments concerned are not monitoring the quarries. As a result, mining mafias are excavating and exploiting the natural resources recklessly. The joint supervision by the officials of revenue, mining and forest departments has never been executed in the lease area, they added.
Rayagada Tehsildar Alok Kumar Pradhan said due to staff crunch both in revenue and mining departments, the local administration could not conduct joint raids on the leased areas. Several complaints received by the office are being verified and stringent action will be taken against the defaulters violating the mining rules soon, he added.