Dist adm to blast mines' periphery to stop illegal quarrying

To stop illegal stone mining in Bihar's Rohtas district, the district administration has decided to blast the area adjacent to the mines to make it inaccessible for illegal miners.
"The decision to conduct blasts to make the mines inaccessible to illegal miners was taken after due consultation with senior state government officials and Mines and Minerals Department. The idea is to cut off the link to the illegal miners so that they cannot carry stones from the hills," Rohtas Assistant Director, Mines and Minerals, Gyanendra Kumar said.
The administration has invited tenders for conducting blasts to destroy the adjacent area/periphery of the mines which are used by illegal miners for quarrying, the assistant director said.

As per tender, the blast area should be 20 feet wide, 30 feet long and 20 to 40 feet deep.
The interested parties will submit tenders by May 8 for the purpose, he said and added that the work order to carry out blasts is expected to be awarded by the end this month.
The blast would be triggered in the periphery of a particular part of the Kaimur hill to create a trench so as to make mining area inaccessible to illegal miners.

The district authorities have identified around 15 non concrete such link routes in Karbandiya and Bansa villages in Sasaram block, the two villages where most of illegal stone quarrying take place.

These routes were built by illegal miners to reach to the quarrying site, he added.
The decision comes four months after the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's visit to Sasaram block where he had expressed his displeasure over illegal stone quarrying and asked the senior officials to stop the quarrying at any cost.
The state government had declared the stone mining illegal in 2007.