Hyderabad High Court seeks information on illegal excavation of gravel

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt was dealing with a PIL by P. Narendhar Reddy, a resident of the district, who stated that certain private construction companies were illegally quarrying gravel in Singa Samudram Cher-uvu of Ramchandrapalli and Lolam Cheruvu in Amrad and supplying the gravel to the railways to build the broad gauge railway line from Jagitial to Nizamabad.

The petitioner stated that the gravel falls under minor minerals and permission is needed for its excavation on a large scale under AP Minor Mineral Concession Rules 1966.

He said the illegal excavation of gravel was affecting the strength of the bunds of both irrigation tanks. He urged the court to declare the inaction of the authorities in preventing private respo-ndents from excavation as illegal and impose heavy penalty on private individuals besides impo-sing penal action under IPC. When the bench enquired from counsel representing TS, he said that the mining officials had noticed that private companies had excavated 35,000 tonnes of gravel from tanks and imposed a '89 lakh penalty on them. The bench perused the affidavit filed by the railway authorities in which they admitted that they got 2.05 lakh tonnes of gravel from 3 firms.

While expressing displeasure at the authorities of revenue and mining departments in preventing illegal excavation of gravel, it directed the authorities to file a report by November 9 explaining whether the private companies had permission to carry out gravel quarrying and if they don’t have the permission what action has been initiated against them.