Illegal excavation of riverine materials is ongoing in many places of Rapti Sonari Rural Municipality, Banke.
Chief Administrative Officer of the municipality Singh Raj Dangi said riverine materials of more than one billion rupees in value were found while monitoring.
The rural municipality was not able to issue a tender for the rivers for the last two years so they could not collect revenue even though illegal excavation and sales were taking place.
Joint monitoring including people’s representatives and staffs of the municipality started after a tip off about the illegal excavation and sales came.
While monitoring, riverine materials in huge amounts were found collected in different places, said Rural Municipality Chiair Tapta Bahadur Paudel.
They found such activities while monitoring the illegal stone, sand, pebbles and ballast crusher industries in Wards 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 of the municipality.
Chair Paudel said more materials were found in all the places while measuring and some even piled up the materials in forests.
He stated that all the illegal riverine resources found would be seized and the culprits would also be fined and an executive meeting would be held to stop further illegal excavation and sales.
He added that the municipality would regulate the illegally run crusher industries and not leave any stone unturned while doing so.
Source : TRN,
