8 officials get showcause notice for ‘facilitating illegal mining’ in Moga
The notice has been issued to mining department officials, who had served in the district between October 2022 and September this year.
The state mining department has issued a showcause notice to eight officials for ‘facilitating illegal mining in collaboration with the mafia’ in Moga districts.
The showcause notice, a copy of which is with HT, was issued by the chief engineer of the mining and geology department, Harinderpal Singh Bedi. The notice reads: “A show-cause notice has been issued for causing ₹9.66 crore loss to the state exchequer by misleading the government and facilitating illegal mining after colluding with the mafia”.
The notice has been issued to mining department officials, who had served in the district between October 2022 and September this year. The officials include superintendent engineer Upkaran Pal Singh, executive engineer Ramneek Kaur Uppal and executive engineer Gitesh Upveja, who served between 2020 to 2024 in Moga which also falls under Ferozepur circle.
While, sub-divisional officer (SDO) Gursimran Singh Gill, SDO Lovepreet Singh, junior engineer Anubhav Sisodia, junior engineer Harmanpreet Singh and junior engineer Ritesh Singh, who were posted at Moga during the same period.
The notice further reads: “During a private hearing, the government documents were produced before the office. After inspection of the documents, it was found that ₹9.66 crore loss was caused to the state government during your tenure (2022 to till now) and it was also found all the illegal mining activities carried out at this place were done during your tenure.”
The notice further reads that you (officials) informed the head office that during flood season in 2023, the material had washed away.
“The head office found your activity suspicious and a flying squad was sent to the Ardaman site to check illegal mining on November 4. The flying squad team informed the office that the site was far away from flood-affected areas. As per the fly squad report, there was only 57,000 cubic feet of stock available at the site but you (officials) have informed that there was 7,97,650 cubic feet of material available. Illegal mining activity was found at large scale on the land outside the Ardaman site,” the mining department notice added.
The notice asked the officials to appear at the department head office in Chandigarh on November 20.
It is learnt that the officials had appeared at the head office on Wednesday and submitted their clarifications in writing. The department is yet to take a call on the clarification given by the officials.
Despite repeated attempts chief engineer Bedi couldn’t be contacted for comments.