Mining vehicles damage roads in Moga village, villagers protest

Tribune News Service

Moga, April 2

Residents of Dholewala, Kannianwala, Sherpur Taiba, Bagge and its adjoining villages in Dharamkot subdivision of Moga district are protesting against mining contractors for allegedly damaging village link roads by plying overloaded trucks and tippers laden with sand and other minor minerals.

On a couple of occasions, they took on the mining contractors by stopping their vehicles and forcing them to take other routes.

However, the district administration has taken no action against the overloaded vehicles, which were damaging the rural infrastructure. Villagers have alleged heavy vehicles loaded with sand from the river belt ply on the link roads during the night time against the mining rules. As per the rules, no mining activity could be carried out on the river belts during the night time. Locals Jhirmal Singh, Karaj Singh, Anoop Singh and Raman Singh of Kannian village, Jagjit Singh of Sherpur Khurd alleged mining activities had suddenly increased manifold in the past few days. All mining operations in the Sutlej were being carried out during the night time, they alleged.

They claimed mining contractors indulged in indiscriminate mining activities on the Sutlej belt in the Pipli Mayani area of Jalandhar district and a few locations in the Moga district. However, all heavy vehicles overloaded with sand were transporting sand through Moga district, causing damage to local environment and infrastructure.

It may be mentioned that there was no route plan notified by the state government for the plying of trucks and tippers laden with mining minerals, which has made the rural link roads vulnerable to overloaded heavy vehicles.

Meanwhile, a mining contractor, Sumit Taneja, has lodged a complaint with the district magistrates of Jalandhar and Moga, alleging locals were not allowing their vehicles to ply on the roads due to which he was incurring heavy losses.

Local activists of BKU (Rajewal) have urged the state government to reconstruct the roads damaged by heavy vehicles and stop the plying of tippers, trucks with immediate effect.

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