Andhra contractor illegally blasting, looting mineral resources from Odisha’s Malkangiri

A major illegal operation has come to light in Malkangiri district's remote Tulasi Hill, where an Andhra Pradesh-based contractor is allegedly conducting unauthorised stone blasting and also looting valuable mineral resources under the guise of road construction, thereby causing significant revenue loss to Odisha, sources said on Tuesday.

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According to sources, a large-scale corruption scandal has surfaced in Odisha’s Malkangiri under the pretext of road construction work. Severe illegal activities are underway in the Tulasi Hill of Mathili block, where a contractor from Andhra Pradesh is openly blasting hills and extracting stones without valid authorisation from the authorities concerned.

The accused contractor has reportedly set up a stone crusher illegally and is engaged in rampant stone mining under the guise of roadwork. These activities are said to have caused massive financial losses to the State exchequer (Odisha government) while enriching a network of mafias operating in the region.

Officials from the State Mining and Pollution Control departments conducted a raid on the crusher site after receiving several complaints from locals. The contractor failed to produce any valid documents permitting such mining operations. Authorities confirmed that no official clearance was granted to establish a crusher in that locality.

The Andhra-based contractor had secured a tender for road work in the region and was initially supposed to procure stone from approved sources. Instead, they allegedly devised a blueprint to extract stone directly from the nearby hills, going as far as to cut down several valuable trees in the process.

Despite these illegal activities running for several months, the local administration had taken no significant action, raising concerns about possible complicity or negligence. However, mining officials have now assured strict action following a ground-level investigation.

Authorities from Odisha are now closely monitoring the situation, and further legal actions against the Andhra-based contractor are expected in the coming days.

Allegedly, the illegal crusher has been operating for the last several months.

“We received a public complaint that an illegal crusher is functioning at Tulasi Hill. Later, we checked with our records and found that no firm had applied for a crusher at Tulasi Ghati,” Malkangiri district mining officer (DMO), Satendra Sardar, stated.

“After reaching the spot today, we saw a stone crusher exists here. The crusher unit is not operating in a full-fledged manner, but only a trial run has been carried out. They have not yet obtained the CTE & CTO (Consent to Establish and Consent to Operate) certificates from the State pollution control board,” the district mining official expressed.

“It is totally an illegal crusher and we will take appropriate action,” the official added.