TENKASI: As the peace committee meeting organised by the Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) of Tenkasi ended without any consensus, the leaders of various political parties including Congress, MDMK, NTK, and social activists decided to block the roads leading to Kerala, as planned on May 16, against the illegal quarrying and mineral transportation to the neighbouring State.
RDO V Ganga Devi presided over the meeting held on Thursday.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (Tenkasi) A Manimaran, Regional Transport Officer (Tenkasi) P Anand and Assistant Director (Mines) Tirunelveli and Tenkasi, Vinoth, represented the respective departments. Speaking in the meeting, former Congress MLA K Raviarunan said that the officials of all the departments were apathetic to act against the erring quarries and overloaded mineral-laden trucks towards Kerala.
"The State government is receiving mere Rs 180 as its revenue for each one unit of mineral. But the same amount of mineral is sold in Kerala for about Rs 13,000. The overloaded trucks are damaging roads and water pipelines in the district. The Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board and Highways Department have to spend crores of rupees each year to repair them. Ultimately, the mineral business of the government is resulting in a huge loss," he added.
MLA Raviarunan alleged that the transport, police, and revenue officials, stationed at the Puliyarai checkpost were receiving bribes from the drivers and allowing their mineral trucks to Kerala.
"While the RTO is imposing a minimum fine of Rs 20,000 on the overloaded trucks as per the Motor Vehicles Act, the police are just fining them Rs 2,000. The officials should unload the overloaded mineral from the trucks as per the Act, but they collect the fine and let them go," he said.
Replying to him, RTO Anand said that his department was not provided with sufficient manpower to unload the vehicles and added that he has written to District Collector S Gopala Sundararaj regarding this. RDO Devi too claimed that her department was short of manpower. She requested Raviarunan and MDMK Union Secretary Rama Udayasuriyan to arrange an empty land to keep the unloaded mineral of the erring trucks. However, NTK's District Anti-Corruption Wing secretary Joseph Ratnam retorted asking why the officials were seeking lands from the public when there was enough government land available.
Claiming that the stone quarries and m-sand units are digging deeper to extract stone, Udayasuriyan urged the officials to install CCTV cameras in the premises to monitor the activities. Puliyarai-based activist S Jameen demanded a ban on night-time operation of quarries and school-hour operation of mineral trucks.
Officials of Highways, TAWD Board, and Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board gave a miss to this meeting. Speaking to the mediapersons, Raviarunan confirmed that they would stage a road blockade near the Puliyarai checkpost as planned on May 16.