Cops unearth fraud in silica transport

Nellore: Though water bodies are gradually disappearing in sand mining areas and the dangerous mix ratio of sand and silica for construction posing threat to the lives of people. Still, illegal exploration activity has been unabated as they were adopting more ‘smart’ ways for transporting the material to the desired destinations throwing dust in the eyes of the official machinery.

Now, the officials were insisting for GPS based monitoring the transportation and also continuous vigil over the irregularities still they are lackadaisical, and the police finally unearthed verifying the total system. In fact, Nellore police made Global Position System (GPS) must for all commercial vehicles to prevent possible irregularities.

It gives scope for tracking the movement area including journey breaks and the scene behind the activity. For instance, Saint-Gobain Glass Company located in Tada mandal and these transporters receive orders from them. But, these operators used to dump the material somewhere in Red Hills area in Chennai.

For instance, transporters get order for 30,000 tonnes from Saint-Gobain. But, they transport around 1 lakh tonnes from the site and dump at a place in Chennai city. Huge fraud unearthed when police officials verified the orders given by the company and the volume of material transported.

The modus operandi was that they submit orders to the officials showing the demand for required quantity of silica sand for their companies and the need for transport.

Officials give permission in good faith and these transporters play a trick and move the vehicles to the areas they had cited in the indent in huge quantities even after shifting the required quantity.

“We have collected previous orders and cross verified with the quantities supplied for just validating the transaction and found the irregularities in huge volume highly impacting the state exchequer. So, we restricted the operations and the number of trips reduced to 150 per day and the revenue to the government also increased,” said District Superintendent of Police PHD Ramakrishna.

He also added that these silica sand is being mixed with the sand used for construction activity. It was earlier 3:1 of sand and silica and it reversed now due to restriction on sand mining.

He lamented that the life of construction would significantly reduce, and they don’t sustain even for one decade. Now, seeing all these irregularities being taken up by sand mafia, the cops are insisting for showing the orders from companies for supply of silica on a daily basis which gave shock to the mafia.

The Nellore silica sand deposits are confined exclusively to the coastal zone between the Kandaleru and Swarnamukhi rivers in the Chillakur and Kota mandals in the district. Though silica sand mines exist in parts of Kurnool and Prakasam districts, Nellore silica sand accounts for around 99 per cent of the entire state’s production.

According to mining officials, there is an area of 918 hectares in Addepalli, Ballavaram, Chintavaram, East Kanupur, Momidi, Ponuguntapalem, Thamminapatnam, Varagali, Vellapalem and Yeruru villages in Chillakur mandal. Besides, there are 13 mining leases spread over an area of 434 hectares in Karlapudi, Kothapatnam and Siddavaram villages in Kota mandal.

By P V Prasad