Screening plant owners booked for illegal trade of mining minerals

Shiv Kumar Sharma

Yamunanagar, October 20

The owners of a screening plant reportedly dismantled their unit about a year ago, but indulged in the sale and purchase of minerals, allegedly carrying out huge illegal mining of boulders, gravel and sand during this period.

Unit DISMANTLED ONE YEAR AGO

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The screening plant was dismantled a year ago. The Mines and Geology Department found that the purchase of the minerals was done through fake transit passes/e-rawanas.

The owners of the said screening plant have shown 1,68,830 MT purchase of the minerals in their record.

However, when the authorities of Mines and Geology Department, Yamunanagar, checked the record of the screening plant conducting a surprise site inspection, they found that the purchase of the minerals had been done through fake transit passes/e-rawanas.

The team of the Mining Department had conducted the surprise inspection of the screening plant, situated in Belgarh village of Yamunanagar district on October 11.

When the team went to the plant, it came to know that it had been dismantled about a year ago.

The team examined the record related to the sale and purchase of minerals by the said plant on e-Rawana Portal of the state government.

The team found that both the sale and purchase were conducted by the owners of the plant up to June 17.

“A careful perusal of the purchase record during May 10 to June 17 reflected a huge purchase of minerals — boulder, gravel and sand — particularly from Mubarik Pur Royalty company, PS Buildtech and Ranjitpur unit BGP,” said Rajesh Sangwan, Assistant Mining Engineer, Yamunanagar.

He said the record of the plant showed that as many as 1,68,830 MT minerals was purchased during this period and 4,590 vehicles were used to carry the said quantity of the minerals.

He added that similarly, the sale of the said mineral had also been conducted till June 17.

“When we verified from the record of our office, the transit passes/e-rawanas shown by the owners of the screening plant for the purchase of minerals, nowhere exist on the portal of the government. It means that the mineral shown as purchased by the plant owners is through fake e-rawanas,” said Rajesh Sangwan, Assistant Mining Engineer.

He said this was indicative of large-scale illegal mining of boulders, gravel and sand by the owners of the said plant.

On the complaint of Aman, Mining Inspector, posted at the Mining Department, Yamunanagar, a case was registered against the owners of the screening plant for forgery and illegal trading of minerals by purchasing these through fake e-rawanas at Pratap Nagar police station recently.