GHAZIABAD: The district administration has cancelled mining lease across 16 hectares in Loni’s Pachera village along the Yamuna floodplains. The lease was cancelled after the miner failed to pay dues to the tune of Rs 4 crore to the state government. Fresh tendering process will be initiated soon to award lease rights “Gurubar Singh, who had been awarded mining rights in Pachera village in February, owed the government over Rs 4 crore. Despite repeated notices, he failed to clear the amount. So, we have cancelled the lease,” said district magistrate Ritu Maheshwari. “The defaulter has also been blacklisted for five years.”A 15km stretch along the banks of the Yamuna in Loni, which comprises Pachaira, Badarpur and Nauraspur villages, had been leased out for sand mining . According to norms, a miner can excavate sand up to 3 lakh metric tonnes per cubic metre annually for a period on four years. The mining area is earmarked and any mining outside the designated area is considered illegal.“Earthmovers were deployed midway to excavate more sand which is an open violation of norms and it is flouted openly,” said Sushil Raghav, an environmentalist. “Though mining is banned between July and September, even now one could see mining going on,” he added.In March this year, the sub-divisional magistrate, Loni had raided the mining area after getting complaints of illegal mining. He had then seized machines used for excavation.

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