Telugu Desam Party(TDP) Anantapur district president and former Minister Kalava Srinivasulu has questioned the waiver of ₹1.92 crore mining royalty and penalty levied on Government Whip and Raidurg MLA Kapu Ramachandra Reddy for excavating more than the licensed quantity in Nemakal village of Bommanahal mandal in Anantapur district.
There was ₹62 crore royalty due earlier. With this, ₹64 crore needs to be collected by the government, said Mr. Srinivasulu at a press conference here on Tuesday.
The Vigilance Department had levied ₹1.92 crore penalty, but Minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy waived off the entire penalty in his ‘court’ through memo No. 3947 dt. October 28 in 2019.
Mr. Srinivasulu alleged that while four building materials/road metal mines were closed in 2018 on orders from the National Green Tribunal and no permission was given for mining in land parcel above 5 hectares, Mr. Ramachandra Reddy got five licenses in the name of his family members and staff and fixed a barrier with “private army” deployed to not allow anyone to enter the closed mines area.
“When complaints of excessive mining even from the closed and unauthorised mines was made recently, the Mining Department officials began measuring the existing mines, but they were asked to leave the place and not do any survey on orders from political bosses,” Mr. Kalava Srinivasulu said at a press conference in the TDP office here on Tuesday.
“Officials were asked to come back from the mining spot where only one was legal and three illegal ones running without the NGT approval, which needs to be ascertained, otherwise the Telugu Desam Party will approach the court and get proper directions in the issue,” he added.
Compressors, tippers, JCBs were left in the closed mine, which was an evidence of illegal mining, he said. He asked the department officials to measure how many lakh cubic meters of material - road metal, was taken out from the mines in these three years. The government can take the help of satellites for proper measurements, he added.
Currently six crushers are running there and Jindal Company in Bellary was being supplied from these mines, he observed. He said during his tenure the quarry and crushers were stopped and questioned as to why only Mr. Kapu Ramachandra’s quarry was opened.
