LAGATAR24 NETWORK
Dumka, May 2: ‘When Rome was burning Nero was playing the flute.’
The famous proverb appears to have been signifying in the district with stakeholders having turned a blind eye towards the indiscriminate exploitation and transportation of mineral resources to faraway places at the cost of a huge revenue loss to the exchequer.
Over 1,000 trucks overloaded with minerals including sand and stone chips remain stranded along Dumka-Bhagalpur road at Hasdiha since Sunday. They are waiting for an opportune time to sneak into the Bihar state where the authorities have reportedly banned the entry of overloaded transport vehicles.
The authorities here in Dumka district, on the other hand, have not only been turning a blind eye towards the contraband practice in terms of not initiating any move to conduct an operation to seize the vehicles or impose a suitable penalty on the transporters but they were witnessed partying with the ‘offenders’ themselves.
Officials and staff of the district mining department had a gala time on Sunday when they were hosted by a section of stone traders. The traders included those who allegedly run illegal stone quarries and crusher plants in Shikaripara and other pockets, at the picturesque Chutonath hill in the outskirts of the sub-capital town here.
Chutonath hill is a religious place under Jama police station limit of the district which has in course of time emerged to be a famous tourist spot where goats are sacrificed to mark the fulfilment of some important aspirations of the devotees and cooked mutton (of the sacrificed goats) and rice is served to the invitees by the hosts.
And of course, liquor comprises an essential prasadam for the willing guests as it is also offered to the deity, commonly referred to as Chuto Baba, which together with mutton and rice make Chutonath temple a much sought after spot for organising feasts that otherwise cannot ‘oblige’ the invitees this way anywhere else.
Conspicuously, the aforesaid group of revellers also comprised the few most infamous stone traders having been facing charges of misappropriation of huge amount to the tune of several crores in terms of unauthorised exploration of the mineral items and have still been running the illegal stone quarries being hand in glove with the administrative stakeholders.
“It is an irony that thousands of trucks overloaded with stones and sand are stranding along a vast stretch between Hasdiha and Bhaljor (the bordering point with Bihar’s Banka district) and officials instead of launching the drive for their seizures and penalising them were busy in partying with the violators,” repented Mithilesh Rao, one of the visitors who had a tough time coming to Chutonath from his village near Hansdiha owing to the emergence of huge traffic jam along the aforesaid stretch.
According to a rough estimate, an amount ranging between Rs 5 to 10 crores would have been collected had different government departments including mining, transport and commercial taxes departments conducted a joint operation to investigate the papers from the overloaded trucks.
Meanwhile, the Sunday ‘feast’ at Chutonath hill turned out to be the talk of the town in the district headquarters here on Monday with the administrative ‘indifference’ towards the misery being largely attributed to a parallel arrangement of the payment of Rs 4500 by the truckers to a well-established racket of passers for transporting every trip of minerals from the district, been made to continue with the practice.
“Stakeholders from top to bottom have their fingers in the pie,” said Prakash Chandra Gandharva, a whistleblower against illegal mining.
