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| Strategic Railway, Highway bridges under grave threat | | Mining mafia trashes Apex court, Govt orders | |  Early Times Report
kathua, Apr 11: Despite strict instructions of Supreme Court of India, district administration and Environment based NGOs, thousand tons of concrete materials is being extracted from the bed of Ravi river threatening lives of thousands of railways passengers.
The Kathua district administration has imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 along the bridges falling on the National Highway-1 to curb the unabated illegal extraction of sand and boulder from the riverbeds along the strategic highway but this order had brazenly been mocked at by the mining mafia. The decision has been taken in the wake of reports of large-scale damages to railway and road bridges following illegal quarrying but the administration has largely failed to stop illegal mining from Ravi on which some of the strategic bridges have been built. This has resulted in damages to their foundation posing threat to them.
Under Secretary to Government directed through government order no.305/MCC/GM/RSB/19/8385-87 dated 27/03/2019 that state/central government agencies can undertake mining activities from the un-auctioned blocks on royalty basis but private agencies from Punjab as well as J&K also undertake mining activities under the nose of district administration, officials of Irrigation & Flood control department and other concerned. Extraction is not only damaging the public property but also an alarming bell to the lives of Railways passengers as a large number of concrete materials under the railways bridge has been extracted unauthorizedly.
All other bridges in the region have long been under threat from the mining mafia which is minting crores of rupees every year from this. Hundreds of tractors, big dumpers and tillers can be seen extracting sand, stone and other materials from various sites which have never been auctioned and are close to many crucial bridges. With a boom in construction activity, sand is in huge demand. Several truckloads of sand are extracted every day to feed the construction business.
S. Surinder Singh State president Pragitisheel Samajwadi Party lambasted on state government and smelled its involvement in illegal mining. He expressed concern over illegal mining and disclosed that it was a big scam of aprox.10,000 crore per year. "Mishappening due to Extraction of concrete materials under the Railways and road bridges could cause huge damage to the lives of people," he added.
When contacted, ADRM Railways Ferozpur, expressed his apathy to the issue of illegal mining under the crucial bridges. |
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