Nellore: TD leaders said they would file a case in the National Green Tribunal as, according to them, enforcing agencies were not taking action against illegal excavation of gravel from forest land classified as ‘adavi poramboku’ at Kantepalli village in Venkatachalam mandal,
A senior official of the forest department aid that the Supreme Court had in 1995 ruled against mining or other activities in ‘adavi poramboku’ land. He said that the forest department had sent letters to the mining and the revenue departments to prevent mining in the forest land at Kantepalli, in June.
Incidentally, Mines and geology officials have seized 15 tippers and four excavators for illegal excavation and transportation of gravel in Kantepallu on June 22.
When contacted, mining officials confirmed that they had not given permission to mine at Kantepalli. They said they would impose 10 times fine on the seigniorage of Rs 110 for cubic metre of gravel or soil.
According to the official, 8,000 cubic metres of gravel had been excavated from the area, and the department would collect approximately Rs 560 per cubic metre.
A revenue official said that the land was was forest poramboke, but a small portion of it was leased to some locals for cultivation through ‘ek saal lease’ (literally lease for a year) for three years, in 1990. Some of them had sold the land.
After noticing this in 2011, the then collector of Nellore district placed the land on the prohibited property list to prevent its registration.
He said the department had not given permission for mining, and hinted that officials would book cases against two contractors involved in the mining.
Meanwhile, Sarvepalli legislator Kakani Govardhan Reddy, during an interaction with the media at Kantepalli on Tuesday, ridiculed the TD for its allegations over mining in forest land.
He said that the government had given the land to farmers some decades back which they have been cultivating.
Govardhan Reddy said there were several transactions on the land, and its ownership had changed hands. “Farmers permitted mining with a condition that those taking the gravel should level the land and hand it over to them,” he said.
Govardhan Reddy said some of the farmers who gave the land for mining were Telugu Desam members.
