Illegal mining in Sonebhadra district has been done in the knowledge of Mining Minister Gyatri Prajapati and well strong syndicate comprising of public representatives, media persons, transporters and local officials are facilitating the trade resulting into huge loss to state exchequer. Interestingly the extortion has been made in the name of RsVIP’, the code word for Rsextortion’.
The said facts came to the fore during interrogation of senior survey officer (mining) in Sonebhadra, Ram Nath Yadav, who was summoned in connection with investigation regarding illegal mining. The probe has been made by lokayukta Justice (retd), NK Mehrortra, who now summoned the former district mining officer of Sonebhadra, AK Singh and than survey officer (mining) DK Singh, to extract other details about the above syndicate as disclosed before him by Ram Nath Yadav. Duo were summoned on coming Friday.
Mehrotra, when contacted on Tuesday, he refused to give any detail claiming that the investigation in the matter is in full swing and very soon, he would proceed with legal proceedings on basis of evidences. Mehrotra. who also sought query about Ram Nath’s transfer from principal secretary (mining), Gurdeep Singh, but the latter failed to provide it and seek more time. Mehrortra now gave him two more days to reply on the matter.
Sources maintained that Ram Nath Yadav, finally appeared before Mehrotra and recorded his statement on the illegal mining issue on Tuesdayafternoon. He reportedly disclosed on record that before he joined in Sonebhadra, illegal mining was rampant in the district with about 400 trucks illegal transporting minerals per day in the district, resulting into loss of over Rs 2 crore per month. At that time district mining officer of Sonebhadra was AK Singh and survey officer (mining) was DK Singh, he added. He said that the code word for extortion is RsVIP’.
Yadav further disclosed that that the RsVIP’ was collected by a well organised syndicate comprising of politicians, journalists, officials, transporters, police etc. Sources confirmed that he disclosed names of some politicians (like Vinay Kumar Srivastava, Ashutosh Tripathi, Dharamveer Yadav, all of BJP, Shyam Bihari Yadav of Samajwadi Party, Jagdish Mishra, Amit Chaturvedi of Congress), some journalists (Saim Afzal, Anil Chowdhary, Vivek Pande, Amit Chaturvedi etc).
Sources further confirmed that Yadav even admitted that Gyatri Prajapati and other senior officers were aware of the above syndicate. RsRsMining minister, Gyatri Prajapati had held a meeting at mining directorate in which I informed them about the above illegal mining and also of the said syndicate”, disclosed Yadav in his reply to Mehrotra, adding that all the other senior officers were also present in that meeting. However, he claimed that once he took the charge, all the above illegal operations has been stopped. Interestingly, he also disclosed that Amrendra Singh, a close aide of Gyatri Prajapati, also visited Sonebhadra but remained silent on the purpose of his visit.
Replying on the issue of cancellation of his transfer order and again posting at the same place in Sonebhadra, Yadav, claimed that he was transferred by the Director Mining and attached with the directorate so he submitted a memorandum to the principal secretary (Mining) to review his transfer order. He said that later his transfer order was cancelled so he again joined at the same place and now he is working as senior survey officer (mining) in Sonebhadra and is also looking after charge of district mining officer, whenever the said officer is on leave.