In election season, the illegal sand trade continues to take a toll on West Bengal’s most volatile assembly constituency
Even as the sun, hidden behind a curtain of trees, dips into the horizon, trucks and tractors, whirring in and out from dawn to dusk,still raise a sand storm on the vast banks of the river Ajay. Once the lifeline of towns, villages and farms in the laterite belt of Birbhum and Burdwan, two adjacent districts of West Bengal, the river has now been reduced to a network of barely knee-deep streams.
“Chhappanno (fifty-six), satanno (fifty-seven), atanno (fifty-eight),” an armed guard keeps count of the vehicles trundling down to scoop sand. Loaded trucks and tractors can only exit the trenches after paying him the ‘gate-pass’ money. For one truck load, or around 400 cubic feet of sand, the price is Rs 100. Once the sand reaches the market, a truckload sells for Rs 700—a seven-fold mark-up. The state government is supposed to get Rs 60 for every 100 cubic feet of sand lifted from the region. It is also supposed to earn revenue from the leasing out of the sand banks to the highest bidder through an open auction. But the guard at the banks is not a state government representative. He is muscle for one of the two local politicians who control the illegal sand economy, worth an estimated Rs 40 crore a year.
This may not sound like a large figure in comparison to the thousand-crore scams that rock the country routinely, but here in backward Birbhum, it’s a king’s ransom. An amount worth killing and dying for.
この記事は India Today の April 25, 2016 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は India Today の April 25, 2016 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Who Will Win The Mahayuddh?
In Maharashtra's Most Complex Political War Ever, Shifting Alliances Fuel A Gripping Saga Of Power Struggles And Betrayals In The Pursuit Of Votes
Grand Young Master
Seventeen-yearold D. Gukesh has become the youngest player to win the Candidates chess tournament
SPORTING SPIRIT
BADMINTON PLAYER ASHWINI PONNAPPA, 34, IS OFF TO HER THIRD OLYMPICS, THIS TIME WITH A NEW PARTNER, TANISHA CRASTO
PORTRAITS OF A PEOPLE
Etchings by the colonial Flemish artist F. Baltazard Solvyns are getting a new lease of life in an exhibition at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai
Centennial Man
A seminal exhibition of K.G. Subramanyan's works in his birth centenary year at Emami Art, Kolkata takes an imaginative and immersive curatorial approach
Rhythms of Nature
ARTIST AND MUSIC COMPOSER GINGGER SHANKAR'S LATEST SINGLE COMBINES SOUTH INDIAN MUSIC WITH INUIT THROAT SINGING
SEARCHING FOR THE SOUND
Kashmiri musician Faheem Abdullah’s debut album Lost; Found is a collaborative effort
FOUND IN TRANSLATION
With its excellent translations, Songs of Tagore makes Rabindrasangit accessible to the non-Bengali reader
Of Freedom and Friendship
T.C.A. RAGHAVAN'S CIRCLES OF FREEDOM FOLLOWS THREE YOUNG MUSLIMS DRAWN INTO THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE
The Razor's Edge
Salman Rushdie's Knife is an eloquent, first-person account of the horrific attack on him. It's also a love story