The Andhra Pradesh Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force (RSASTF) officials are surprised with the information that post demonetisation, the bank accounts of the woodcutters at the Jamunamarattur panchayat of Tiruvannamalai district in Tamil Nadu have during the last one week been flooded by deposits to the tune of Rs. 11 crore.
There has been been a sudden and sharp rise in the felling of red sanders in the Seshachalam hills after the demonetisation drive. A large number of trespassing groups had been spotted in the last one week. A couple of days ago, one woodcutter was apprehended while two dozen had escaped, leaving several logs behind.
On Monday night, the Task Force recovered 48 logs at the western slopes of the Tirumala hills and reported that over 50 woodcutters had escaped under the cover of darkness.
M. Kantha Rao, RSASTF Head and DIG, told The Hindu that they got information about the deposits in a bank in Jamunamarattur of the Jawadi Hills area. “We have verified the information with the bank authorities concerned, and found it to be true. Our special teams are probing it further,” the DIG said.
