The National Green Tribunal (NGT) Eastern Zone Bench has issued notices to the Jajpur district Collector, Deputy Director of Mines and other senior State Government and State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) officials for reportedly not taking any action against an errant sand miner who is lifting sand from the Baitarani river near Sanala village.
They have been asked to file objections within three weeks.
In response to a petition by Ananta Kumar Das and others of Jajpur, an NGT Bench comprising Justice SP Wangdi and Prof (Dr) PC Mishra also directed the SPCB Regional Officer to inspect the area and verify on the correctness of the allegations contained by the petitioners in their petitions and submit the report within third week of January 2017.
The petitioners have alleged that one Debendra Ghadei has been illegally doing sand mining in the river at Sanala without obtaining any environment clearance from the authorities due to callousness of the concerned authorities.
“Ghadei has been illegally using excavators for sand mining though he got permission to use only manual mining through labour and no machine to be used for mining the sand. Vehicles engaged by Ghadei in sand mining are causing pollution and not covered with tarpaulin causing more pollution,” the petitioners alleged.
Though the petitioners on several occasions knocked the door of the concerned authorities nothing tangible has happened as yet.
“On July 8, 2016 Ghadei had agreed in a meeting chaired by the Jajpur Sub- Collector not to use machines and heavy vehicles for sand mining but he has been using machines to lift sand from the river bed,” said Sankar Prasad Pani, one of the petitioners.
The petitioners are the worst suffers due to the illegal activity as their village is close to the river.