Co ‘illegally’ excavates Rs100 cr murrum, destroys over 150 acre

Nagpur: A Mumbai-based company and its contractor have allegedly excavated murrum worth over Rs100 crore illegally, and destroyed over 150 acre land belonging to some farmers and a company, while constructing Samruddhi Mahamarg or Nagpur-Mumbai Super-communication Expressway in Wardha district. Selu police have booked engineers of the company and the petty contractor, while Wardha collector Vivek Bhimanwar has ordered an inquiry to check whether more farmers are affected or similar illegal excavation was done on state government land.
City resident Nilesh Singh, representative of Hyderabad-based Cozy Properties Private Limited, unearthed the scandal and alleged Afcons Infrastructure and its petty contractor MP Constructions have also excavated murrum from several acres of government land without permission, and despite a ban.
“It is a big scandal. We could establish excavation of murrum worth over Rs100 crore and destruction of over 150 acres in only 6km of road construction. MSRDC had awarded work of 59km costing Rs3,220 crore to Afcons in Wardha district. MSRDC pays for murrum, one of the major components for road construction. This means the companies are pocketing public money while illegally excavating murrum,” he said.
Singh added, “Cozy Properties had purchased around 1,000 acres from Maharashtra Explosives in an auction in 2008. Land is spread over three mouzas in Selu tehsil on Wardha Road. Property was abandoned due to pending projects. A 1.5km stretch of the proposed Mahamarg passes through the land. Company had handed over 45 acres for the road last year.”
Representatives of Afcons and MP Construction had approached the company to lease some land to excavate murrum, said Singh. However, the company had declined the request as it is planning some projects on the land. “A security guard informed us about damage to fence and excavation in the land a couple of months ago. We conducted survey through a private agency and also state’s land records department, which revealed 8.82 lakh brass murrum worth over Rs100 crore had been excavated from our land. Around 103 acre land has turned into quarry, making it useless. It has been dug up to 38 feet,” he said.
Selu police registered an offence against Anil Kumar, project officer of Afcons, and Ashish Daptary, owner of MP Constructions, under section 379, 447, 427, 120-B and 34 of IPC (illegally intruding into other’s properties in a group and stealing) on August 22.
Singh said, “Police are not cooperating. We lodged a complaint on July 30 and offence was registered after 23 days. Our loss will rise to over Rs200 crore if we have to spend Rs100 crore to reclaim the land. Police did not book Afcons directly though we submitted all documents, pictures and videos,” he said.
Singh said, “Afcons and its petty contractor also excavated land owned by some farmers without their permission. They also damaged a river bed. Wardha district administration had given permission to excavate murrum from a river. But much more excavation than permitted was done. Works should be stopped and inquiry done in entire road length of 59km,” he said.
Confirming illegal excavation on land of Cozy Properties, Bhimanwar said action will be taken immediately in this case. He added, “Road is being constructed in two tehsils — Selu and Arvi. I have appointed two committees headed by sub divisional officers of two tehsils to inquire into excavation on other private or government land. There is ban on excavation on government land,” he said.
Apart from Cozy Properties, two more persons — Madhukar Masram of Khapri (Dhone) and another person — lodged similar complaints with police on August 24.