Yamunanagar: Screening plant owners illegally extract mining material from Yamuna

Shiv Kumar Sharma

Yamunanagar, June 16

In violation of the orders issued by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the owners of a screening plant have allegedly extracted raw mining material (a mixture of boulders, gravel and sand) illegally from Yamuna river and stocked it at their plant situated in Kanalsi village of Yamunanagar district.

The screening plant is hardly 300 m from the Yamuna. This fact of illegal mining was revealed in a report, prepared by Rajesh Sangwan, assistant mining engineer (now shifted from Yamunanagar to another district), after inspection of the screening plant by a team of the Mining Department headed by him.

Sangwan sent this report to the higher authorities of his department and the police in the form of a complaint for the registration of an FIR against the persons involved in this illegal mining case.

Sources said during the inspection on June 8, the team observed that there was no e-rawana generating system and no weighbridge was installed at the site.

The team also received a book bill from the office of the plant containing 100 pages from serial number 1 to 100. Vehicles numbers, along with mineral quantity, were entered datewise in the first 53 pages of the bill book.

The registration numbers of vehicles, belonging to the owners of the screening plant, were also mentioned in the bill book. These vehicles were shown making multiple trips on a particular day.

“The entries in the bill book justify that boulders, gravel and sand have been illegally mined from Yamuna river and stocked on the plant premises,” reads the report, prepared by the then AME.

In his report, the AME also mentioned that there was only 62.80 MT closing quantity of received mineral on the e-rawana portal of the screening plant on June 8. However, when they measured the stock physically, the quantity of boulders, gravel and sand was found to be 16200 MT at the site of the screening plant.

Sources said as per the orders issued by the NGT from time to time, no mining could take place in the non-mining area of the Yamuna river. On the complaint of mining inspector Rohit, a case was registered against the owners of the screening plant under Section 21 of the MMDR Act 1957 and 379 of the IPC at the Buria police station on June 12.

NGT orders violated

• There was no e-rawana generating system and no weighbridge installed at the site of the screening plant
• There was only 62.80 MT closing quantity of received mineral on e-rawana portal of the screening plant on June 8
• When Y’nagar mining dept measured the stock physically, the quantity of boulders, gravel and sand was found to be 16200 MT at the screening plant