Burdwan | May 10, 2017: Four persons drowned in the Damodar in a span of three days, bringing to the centre stage the problem of uneven depths in the river caused by illegal sand mining in Burdwan East and Bankura.

Souvik Mondal, 13, and Aparna Ghosh, 12, died when they slipped into cavities caused by the illegal mining in the river at Galsi on Saturday.

In Jamalpur, Aruna Maiti, 34, and her daughter Fuleswari, 12, drowned in the river when they fell into deep hollows on Monday. Galsi and Jamalpur are in Burdwan East.

The Telegraph went to some mining pits yesterday and today and found that illegal lifting of sand continued unabated in the river in the two districts amid murmurs that the administration had turned a blind eye to the rampant violation of laws.

"The sand miners are lifting huge quantity of sand by using excavators from the river bed, causing cavities. Those who died on Sunday slipped into hollows and drowned. We will not allow sand mining here anymore," said Shankar Gorai of Galsi's Gopdal.

Some villagers said they had informed the administration about the problem, but no action was taken.

"Illegal sand mining is rampant in the Damodar downstream the Durgapur barrage and there is no doubt that it causes uneven depths in the river. When the illegal miners dig up a huge ditch, it immediately gets filled with ground water and whatever flows from the barrage. Then it takes some time for sand to flow in and it settles loosely. So, there is always a risk of one drowning as the depth becomes uneven," said a Calcutta-based river expert, confirming the notion of the villagers.

Two excavators were seen lifting sand from the river bed and loading it into trucks parked on the dry beds in Burdwan Sadar Ghat on the bank of the Damodar in Burdwan East and Saltora in Bankura.

The sand pit at Burdwan Sadar Ghat is licensed but the National Green Tribunal had last year banned the use of excavators to lift sand, saying illegal mining was an environmental hazard. The tribunal had allowed manual lifting of sand from the rivers in Bengal.

The scene is same at Tirat, Ratibati, Dihika, Pandaveswar and Kanksa in Burdwan West.

The trucks carrying the illegally mined sand are overloaded also, crossing the permissible limit of 200cft per each vehicle.

Asansol South Trinamul MLA, Tapas Banerjee, said he had written to the commissioner of Asansol-Durgapur police, urging him to stop illegal sand mining in the Damodar and Ajay rivers which flow through Durgapur and Asansol.

The police commissioner, Lakshmi Narayan Meena, said frequent raids were held whenever they received information about illegal sand mining or overloading of trucks.

His counterpart in Burdwan East Kunal Aggarwal echoed him.

(Source: https://www.telegraphindia.com/)