Kumar Rajiv Nayan
Ara : A team of officials, on the direction of Bhojpur DM Sanjeev Kumar, conducted raids at different places and seized 26 trucks overloaded with sands on November 18, 2018, night.
Complaints were pouring in that in violation of all rules and regulations, sand mining was going at different ghats in Bhojpur district. Bhojpur DM, taking serious note of it, formed a team of officials under Ara SDO Arun Prakash and directed them to conduct raids at different sand gahts. The team conducted raids under different police station the whole night on November 18 and seized 12 overloaded trucks from Tetaria Mor under Udwantnagar police station, seven overloaded trucks from Sahar and seven overloaded trucks from Pawana police stations.
Bhojpur district administration had ordered for installation of ‘dharmkanta’ at 32 sand ghats so that the trucks and tractor carrying sand were weighed before leaving the sand ghats but barring one ghat it was not installed at any ghat even after a year causing a huge revenue loss to the state government. The district administration had also ordered for loading and carrying only dry sand but the contractors violate this order too. Such overloaded trucks ply on road mostly during night.
District Mines Officer Vijay Prakash said that stern action is being taken against recalcitrant contractors and truck drivers and owners and added that direction has also been issued for installation of ‘dharmkanta’ at eight more sand ghats.
On the other hand, hundreds of sand labourers blocked Koelwar-Babura main road near Rajpur village on November 19, 2018, paralysing movement of vehicles for about two hours in protest against use of JCB machines for sand mining. They raised slogans against the sand mafias and demanded immediate check on the use of JCB machines.