SRIKAKULAM: Taking the recent instances of illegal sand mining into account, officials of the Mining department have decided to install CCTV cameras at the authorised sand reaches in the district. Hundreds of truckloads of sand is being illegally transported daily to Visakhapatnam, even by creating fake waybills. Police in the recent past had seized trucks transporting sand to Visakhapatnam with fake waybills of the Odisha government.
Despite the rule banning lifting of sand during night, majority of the sand-laden trucks ply during night-time. For record, not so long ago about 30 trucks, including a few proclaimers, got stranded at a sand reach at Purushotthapuram in Sarubujjili mandal near the Vamsadhara river after sudden influx of floodwater at midnight. Despite the cyclone warning, sand mafia tried to lift sand amidst heavy rains and that too at midnight.
Moreover, people involved in legal sand mining continue to dig the sand in the allocated reaches beyond allowed limits. Taking all things into account, district collector K Dhananjaya Reddy has decided to install CCTV cameras at the authorised sand reaches. With the installation of the proposed CCTV cameras, the district collector and the Mines AD can watch the action taking place at various sand reaches from their respective offices, directly as the server will be connected to the collector’s and the Mining department’s offices. “As part of intensifying the surveillance on sand mining in the district, we have decided to put up CCTV cameras at all authorised reaches,” said Tamminaidu, the additional director of Srikakulam Mines department.
He also said that as a part of the exercise, “we are installing CC cameras at the reaches granted to Visakhapatnam in the first phase.” He also said that henceforth GPS system would be introduced in the trucks that transport sand to Visakhapatnam. “Unlike earlier, we will allow only tractors into the reaches, including reaches allocated for Visakhapatnam,” he said.