mangalore today

Mines officials raid illegal quarries near Yekkar; seize trucks, machinery


Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, June 03, 2015: A team of officials of the Department of Mines and Geology led by Deputy Director Ramappa and another officer Nagendrappa raided  the illegal quarries at Arasule Padavu near Yekkar in Bajpe police station limits on June 2 and seized  five trucks loaded with stones, six cutting machines and several other equipment.


	raid illegal

 

Bajpe mining

 

It has been gathered that  laterite stone quarries  were operating illegally in  an area spread over one thousand acres  of government as well as some private land in blatant violation of all rules. There have been at least six raids on these quarries in the past when authorities had slapped a penalty of over Rs 10 lakhs on the quarry operators. But all this had proved to be a futile exercise as the quarries used to resume operations within  just two days of the raids.

Some time back the locals had complained to the Deputy Commissioner who had instructed the Tahsildar to look into the complaint that the quarry operators  had  even encroached upon a PWD road and  had converted it into a quarry. The visit to the place by the Tahsildar too had yielded no result.

The issue  has even been discussed at several ZP meets but of no avail and the allegation is that  several of these unauthorised quarries had political backing.