20200103 Pune: Crackdown on sand mafia, 23 boats set on fire
India Jan 05 2020 “Houses” “Shipboard”
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Pune: Crackdown on sand mafia, 23 boats set on fire
Updated: 2020–01–05
PUNE: The Daund revenue officials on Friday set ablaze 23 fibre boats used by the sand mafia for illegal dredging along the Bhima river.
“We have destroyed 15 big-sized boats and eight small ones, collectively worth over Rs1 crore. Besides, we have seized 10 suction pumps meant to dredge sand from the riverbeds,” Daund tehsildar Sanjay Patil said on Saturday.
He said they were in the process of identifying the operators of these boats. “I have asked circle officers of the areas in question to identity the boats’ operators and submit a report. Based on their findings, we will plan our course of action,” Patil said.
The river passes through the Daund tehsil before flowing into the Ujani reservoir in Solapur’s Madha taluka. The villages of Vaklunj and Malthan lie along the riverbank.
The action followed several complaints lodged by the residents of these villages with the revenue department over the past few weeks. The villagers had complained that sustained illegal sand-mining caused a sharp deterioration in the quality of their roads.
“Hundreds of trucks illegally carrying sand ply on these roads. The roads are not designed to sustain heavy vehicular traffic. The subsequent deterioration of the roads and the riverbeds prompted the villagers to submit complaints to the revenue department,” a revenue official said.
Meanwhile, the villagers said the authorities need to take stricter action to curb illegal sand-mining in their areas. “Over the past decade, Daund has emerged as the hub of the sand mafia, with the demand for said rising consistently in the real estate market. Besides, the quartz of the Bhima basin is considered to be of a superior quality, boosting its demand in Pune’s construction industry,” another revenue official said.
Social activist Balasaheb Chaudhary, who has been pursuing the matter of illegal sand-mining with the authorities concerned, said the district administration needs to carry out this kind of drive on a regular basis. “These operators are financially influential. They purchase new boats within a week and resume their activity. The authorities must take sustained action,” he said.
BOX
HL: MODUS OPERANDI
Members of sand mafia buy boats from Gujarat
They locally fit suction pumps meant to illegally extract sand from the riverbeds
They use the boats to ferry the extracted sand till the river banks and later load in trucks
Extraction of one truckload of sand cost sand mafias Rs5000
Meanwhile, a truckload worth of sand might fetch anywhere between Rs15,000 and Rs20,000
Web Source: The times of India