FIR lodged against sand contractor in Daltonganj

Circle Officer Sadar SS Pandey has lodged an FIR against sand contractor Niranjan Prasad at town police station. A criminal case has been instituted under Sections 419 and 420 of the IPC.

Pandey said Sadar SDO Nancy Sahay asked him to lodge the case against Prasad.  Pandey said Prasad has been accused of allowing misuse of challan for making numerous trips of transportation of sand by the tractor people. He said the detection of fraud in sand trade is just a tip of the iceberg.

Speaking to this reporter Nancy Sahay said ‘ People in sand business are misusing challan. One challan means one transportation of sand. It may be 80 cft or 100 cft. Challan has also its time in which lifting and downloading of it is prescribed’. Transportation of sand is to be done within the time frame she reiterated.

Nancy Sahay said, “What we detected was that several trips of transportation of sand was being made on just one challan. The trips of transportation of sand were as many as 12 to 15 per challan. This was the biggest foul play with the challan.”

Asked as to how this cheat game is one she said, “Sand contractor and tractor cum trolley man are hands in gloves.  Challan is given to the tractor man. He has his fleet of labourers. The labourers dig up sand loads it and then pushes off from the river bed all day long on just one challan whereas the rule reads that there will be one transportation of sand on one challan and that too within the stipulated period of time and not for the whole day or at any other point of the day.”

Sources said government gets 91 rupees as tax on sand. But this kind of fraudism in challan robs the government of its revenue.

Sources said apart from this loss to state exchequer haphazard mining of sand from the river bed is dangerous to river and environment also.

Sources said sand contractors are in mad rush to extract as much sand as possible since rains are to come and rivers here be it Koyal or Amanat all rivers are rain fed .  Rain fed rivers get into spate soon and then extraction of sand gets difficult.

State mine commissioner Abu Baqar Siddiquie on being contacted said ‘  Nancy Sahay has told me about this blatant misuse of challan for making several trips of transportation of sand. More tough measures will be taken to curb this’.