A joint meeting between the officials of Odisha’s Baleswar district and West Bengal’s West Medinapur district was held on Thursday over the dispute of lifting of sand illegally by the mafias.
While there has been tension over the contentious issue, the meeting was observed as a positive step by the bordering districts of the two States towards resolving the dispute.
The residents of either side complain that sand is being lifted from the Subarnarekha riverbed unauthorisedly.
The joint committee decided to form a taskforce involving police and revenue officers of both the districts to look into the issue. The meeting also decided to ban use of power-driven pumps to extract sand while leaseholders would lift sand from their demarcated areas. The lifter would have to possess the order for the purpose and pay revenue before lifting. The boundary dispute would be resolved at the Government level of both States, and till then the taskforce would sort out the disputes between the two districts.
W Medinapur Additional District Magistrate Surendra Kumar Meena, District Mineral Manager PK Singh and police officers of West Bengal attended the meeting.
From Baleswar, Additional Magistrate Manmath Pani, Sub-Collector Ramchandra Palta, Additional SP Santosh Nayak and Tehsildar Ramchandra Kisku were among the others present.
It may be recalled that Odisha Revenue Divisional Commissioner (Central) Bikash Mahapatra had visited Jaleswar and inspected the spots from where lifting of sand was alleged to be done by the traders of Bengal.