Tamil Nadu BJP state president Annamalai has alleged that mineral looting is the only election promise DMK has fulfilled.
In his statement in this regard, he has said that: Through investigation by the Enforcement Department, it has come to light that a fraud of around 4,730 crore rupees has been committed in Tamil Nadu through sand robbery. In the matter of illegal sand robbery, the enforcement department had alleged that the private sand contractors were involved in fraud with the complicity of the government officials and that the Tamil Nadu government had not taken any action regarding the sand robbery. Now, the details of the letter dated June 14 written by the Enforcement Directorate to the Director General of Tamil Nadu Police have been released.
In this letter, it has been mentioned that in the past 9 months of investigation based on the Illegal Money Transfer Act, in the last year alone, 23.64 lakh units of sand have been mined more than the permissible amount and where the Public Works Department has given permission, the sand contractors are using giant machines to illegally mine sand.
In the four sand quarries inspected by the enforcement department, the contractors have mined 30 times more sand. In the letter, the Enforcement Department also stated that where sand mining was allowed only in 4.9 hectares, 105 hectares of sand has been mined. In a letter, the Enforcement Department said that while the government had given permission to the contractors for sand mining in 28 areas in a total area of 190 hectares in five districts, 987 hectares of sand has been illegally mined.
The enforcement department has also submitted a technical report on the condition of the sand before and after illegal sand mining using clear satellite photographs. In the survey conducted with GPS equipment, 273 sand machines were found to be in use. In Tamil Nadu, 16 persons have purchased this giant sandblasting machine, the enforcement department said in its letter.
Further, the enforcement department in its letter mentioned four companies and mentioned the details of who were awarded contracts for sand mining and sand transportation. In his letter, he mentioned that not only the illegal mining of sand caused a huge loss to the government, but also that the sand contractors had bought and accumulated properties.
Based on the investigation already conducted by the Enforcement Department, it has been mentioned that assets of sand contractors worth Rs 130 crore have been frozen, out of which 209 sand mining machines worth about Rs 128 crore have been frozen. They also said that 2.25 crore rupees have been frozen from 35 bank accounts of sand contractors.
In connection with this sand robbery, which has been carried out entirely with the help of officials, already on 25th of April, 5 District Collectors of Ariyalur, Karur, Thanjavur, Trichy and Vellore were present for investigation by the Enforcement Department. However, Annamalai said that the DMK government has not yet taken any action against any officials regarding this sand robbery which has caused disaster to the Tamil Nadu government.
