The Kancheepuram Revenue Divisional Office personnel have seized 19 sand-laden lorries from Muthuvedu sand quarry in river Palar on Monday night.
Enquiries revealed that a team of officials led by Revenue Divisional Officer, Kancheepuram, S.Palani reached the quarry at around 9.30 p.m. on Monday based on a tip-off from their counterparts responsible for supervising sand quarry operations.
When the Revenue officials accompanied by officials from Mines Department, Public Works Department and police visited the quarry, they found 19 lorries at the site loaded with sand.
The State government had recently barred the use of machines in sand-quarrying activity and restricted the sand-mining operation hours from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Drivers present at the site were not able to produce proper documents to establish that the sand was legally quarried after remitting the requisite fee for two units of sand.
All the vehicles were seized and taken to the District Collectorate campus.
Later on Tuesday morning, notices from the RDO office were sent to the lorry owners stating that their vehicles were found carrying illegally quarried sand and that they should remit Rs.27,500 per vehicle as fine to get the vehicles released.
Meanwhile, the lorry owners who gathered at the Collectorate on Tuesday alleged that their vehicles were loaded with sand by their own employees based on instructions from the PWD officials. “The PWD officials have told us to produce necessary fee for two units of sand, as fixed by the government, in the form of demand draft the next morning and obtain the bill before leaving the quarry,” they said.
