NOIDA: After a TOI report on Nov 30 revealed sand miners had built a road to join two banks of the Yamuna between Delhi and Ghaziabad and make way for excavators, local authorities rushed to the site at Panchayara village in Loni and demolished the pathway.
The road had been laid by tethering wooden planks to the river bed, filling them up with sandbags and then with sand to make it look like any other part of the heavily silted river. The road was built by the official lease holder for sand mining in the area, who had told TOI he had done nothing wrong.
There were other violations of lease conditions like taking heavy machinery to the banks that the TOI report had pointed out. It wasn’t clear what action had been initiated against the lease holder.
“Construction work was stopped and sandbags were removed on Saturday. We will be inspecting the area frequently to make sure no such work starts again. We have also written to the Delhi authorities to take action as the sand miners are constructing a bridge on the Delhi side,” said Rajendra K Shukla, sub divisional magistrate, Loni.
Panchayara, which locals call Pachera, has a 12-hectare riverbank area, of which eight hectares have been officially allocated for mining for a five-year term. According to a mining department official, the mining lease covers a 15km stretch along the Yamuna in Loni, encompassing Pachera, Badarpur, and Nauraspur villages.
Rules don’t permit any mining right on the riverbed. Neither is the use of heavy machines allowed. On the floodplain, excavations are not permitted beyond a depth of 3 metres, and the lessee must ensure the flow of the river is not impeded in any way.
“Police were spotted near Yamuna. They halted all construction and cleared sandbags that had been positioned across the river. Although such activities have been happening for four years, this is the first time there has been an official reaction,” said Pradeep Tyagi, who owns an agricultural patch on the Delhi side of the Yamuna, across Pachera.
