Land alloted for National Games, Portuguese Commonwealth Games used for illegal mining

Several trucks and machinery were confiscated at the land acquired by Goa government to set up a sports city here for National Games 2014, busting an illegal mining racket on government land, police said. Goa police raided the illegal laterite stone mining activity on the land Monday evening after a complaint by the locals.

PANJIM: The land acquired by state government for sports city in Pernem, which has been kept idle since 2009, has become a target of rogues indulging in the illegal mining activity.

Several reports have pointed to rampant mining in Madhya Pradesh, but the state government is yet to wake up. Abhishek Bhalla tracks the unchecked plunder.

The National Green Tribunal has sought a report from the Ministry of Environment and Forest on industrial units functioning in the vicinity of the Kaziranga National Park in Assam.

Asking the ministry to conduct a survey in the park’s vicinity, the Tribunal also expressed its displeasure on the ministry’s failure to a respond to the plea which alleged unregulated quarrying and mining activities in the ‘No Development Zone’ around the park and Tiger Reserve and Karbi-Anglong Elephant Reserve in Assam.

In the backdrop of recent murder of an IPS officer, allegedly by a mining mafia member in Madhya Pradesh, a woman revenue officer escaped from meeting a similar fate by a whisker when she tried to put a leash on illegal excavation of stones at Kusumania village in the district, officials said on Thursday.

The suspected mining mafia member, who tried to mow down Meena Pal, posted as Tehsildar at Kannod, when she was inspecting the illegal mining of stones at the site on Wednesday, is local BJP leader Dhara Singh Patel, they said.

Leaseholders to submit papers on lease, fencing of lease areas, daily reports on transportation

In a bid to regulate iron ore extraction and transportation by the private sector in Goa, the Directorate of Mines and Geology on Monday issued two orders, directing all leaseholders to submit daily reports on transportation and askingd them to submit documents concerning the lease and fencing of the lease areas.

State’s Tall Claims To Check Illegal Practices Fall Flat Once Again

Alwar: Two labourers were buried alive in an illegal mine after stones came crashing on them during an explosion in Alwar’s Tapukara police station area on Tuesday night. As the police and rescue workers could not take the bodies out of the debris till Wednesday night, the tall claims of state government to have enforced the Supreme Court’s complete ban on illegal mining in the area fell flat with these horrifying deaths.

Reckless stone quarrying in eight sites within the limits of Malemahadeshwara and Edeyarahalli reserve forests in Kollegal taluk in the district, is posing a threat to the elephant corridor that falls within its boundaries.

Wild elephants found in the Biligiriranganathaswamy Tiger Reserve Forest in Chamarajnagar district. Sub-section 2 of Section 41 of the Karnataka Forests Act, 1969, prohibits any kind of non-forest activities within 100 mts of the reserve forest area.

Petitioner says quarrying is being carried out on a portion of land given to NICE for BMIC project

The Karnataka High Court on Monday asked the State government to file a status report on the complaint that stone quarrying activities are going on on a portion of land, which was handed over to a private firm for the purpose of Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project.

The ministry of environment and the state government of Assam have been rapped on their knuckles by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for their failure to stop the stone crushing units operating around the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve and in the Karbi-Anglong Elephant Reserve.

The NGT had asked both the state government and the ministry to respond to this unregulated quarrying taking place in the crucial “No Development Zone” (NDZ) especially since wildlife specialists had warned that this activity was adversely affecting the wildlife in the reserve.

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