SAD chief Sukhbir Badal alleges illegal sand mining at Punjab's Mukerian

Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday alleged illegal sand mining at Hoshiarpurs Mukerian, drawing a reaction from state minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria who dubbed the allegations as a desperate bid to gain the lost political ground.Badal made allegations during a surprise visit to mining sites and told reporters that the nexus between some officials and Congress leaders was responsible for the illegal mining.

Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday alleged illegal sand mining at Hoshiarpur's Mukerian, drawing a reaction from state minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria who dubbed the allegations as a desperate bid to gain the lost political ground.

Badal made allegations during a "surprise" visit to mining sites and told reporters that the nexus between some officials and Congress leaders was responsible for the illegal mining. Badal asked Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Mining Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria to disclose the rules that permitted excavations up to 200 feet to extract sand, adding that land along several villages in the constituency has been "ravaged" by the mafia in active connivance with police and officials.

While walking around Dhamian, Sandhwal and Bringali villages, the former state deputy chief minister alleged that the sand mafia dug up in trenches to restrict the movement of vehicles. "Such kind of tactics cannot stop the SAD from exposing them," said Sukhbir. He said even though more than 10 villages have been ravaged by the mafia here, the government is least concerned.

"Even today the local police facilitated illegal miners by informing them about the visit in advance so that they could flee. The mafia is so brazen that they dug up trenches to ensure we could not reach the spot where illegal mining was being done. They even tried to prevent our exit from the area by digging the 'kutcha' road," he alleged.

The SAD president said it was shocking that even though rules permitted excavation till 10 feet, the sand mafia had done excavations till 200 feet, which had resulted in the formation of a lake in the area with groundwater seeping up.

Badal also alleged that the ''goonda tax'' of Rs 10,000 per truck is being charged from local truckers as well as those who operate in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh by the mining mafia.

Badal alleged that the Congress government had ''presided over'' a loot of more than Rs 1,000 crore in illegal sand mining alone and said once his party is voted to power, they will recover this amount and register cases against the guilty. Later, in a statement issued here, Mining Minister Sukhbinder Sarkaria accused Badal of "desperate attempts to gain the lost political ground". He said the sites visited by Badal in the Hoshiarpur district were auctioned in the previous SAD-BJP regime. Several attempts were made by some people to continue illegal mining but the department acted swiftly besides imposing heavy penalties, the minister claimed.

The minister said this was the only reason that the Akalis went to their "favourite" mining sites and there was no machinery as well as illegal mining as claimed by the Akalis. Entire Punjab knows that the word sand mafia originated in the Akali government and the Akalis "looted" Punjab.

Sarkaria said Badal was making "useless" visits just for "political motives" as he knew that the "transparency" ensured by the Congress government in mining activities would become an issue in the upcoming assembly polls. He said Badal was trying to "mislead" people of Punjab by visiting those sites, which were allotted during the Akali regime and the Mining Department had already initiated actions against such sites. On June 30, the SAD chief had made similar charges when he visited the Beas river bank in Amritsar. The State Mining Department had trashed Badal's accusations and asserted that the site visited by the SAD chief near the Beas river was a legal one.