IAS officer’s suspension exposes nexus.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: The youngest Chief Minister of India, Akhilesh Yadav, heading the largest state, Uttar Pradesh, is a busy man. The 40-something engineering graduate from the University of Sydney is currently battling growing dissent for his stand to suspend a woman bureaucrat in the state for her alleged demolition of a mosque wall which Yadav claims could trigger communal backlash.
But the story seems different. The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 2010 batch, Durga Shakti Nagpal, had taken a confrontationist stance against an entrenched sand mafia who had been dredging sand worth hundreds of crores each month from the banks of the Yamuna and Hindon Rivers. The officer nearly put the illegal mining business to a grinding halt with a series of moves, including impounding vehicles trafficking sand, and collecting huge fines from perpetrators. She even survived an attack on her.
After having ruffled feathers of the mafia, presumably enjoying political patronage, the news came out that Nagpal had been suspended for demolishing a wall of a mosque in Greater Noida. But a report by District Magistrate M. Ravi Kant Singh had said that she did not demolish any wall. In fact there was no religious structure there. The state government has appointed a committee to review the report by the DM, but nothing has happened so far.
“The issue was not mining…even we are against illegal mining. The demolition of the wall of a mosque had vitiated the harmony. If an officer takes such an action, government is bound to take action,” a stubborn Yadav told reporters after a meeting of the state Cabinet.
But his rivals were quick to get political mileage out of the event. The Aam Aadmi Party of Arvind Kejriwal offered Nagpal to join them and fight against Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh’s father, in his constituency in Mainpuri. Others like BJP and BSM defended Nagpal’s actions to curb the illegal mining.
But the younger Yadav’s act has been enough to damage the government. His actions point to the mafia’s overlap with the political powers in Uttar Pradesh.
Illegal mining of sand in the country has a turnover close to roughly $2.25 billion annually. In Uttar Pradesh, much of the money made from the illegal activity lines politicians’ pockets. The sand itself gets diverted to the booming construction industry, especially in the booming Noida area. The mafia, as all such outfits do, guard their turf zealously and there are several brutal attacks against officials, and even police personnel, who try to curb them. Nagpal too got a taste of their violence.
In Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad, mining is encouraged covertly by the ever increasing demand for sand by the builders. In the past, an attempt was made to kill then sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Vishal Singh.
Successive Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party governments in Uttar Pradesh in the past 15 years have not bothered to restrain the sand mafia.
As recently as Wednesday, another activist was shot dead after he exposed a miner Rajpal, who was sent to jail. After his release, Rajpal went straight to the activist’s house and shot him dead.