Court moved for auctioning illegally mined granite blocks

MADURAI: The district administration has moved a local court seeking its permission to takeover the illegally mined granite blocks stored at 13 sites and sell them through auction.

In 13 petitions filed before the District Munsiff court, the District Collector submitted that "illegally mined stones" had been hoarded in the sites at seven villages including Keezhayur, E Malampatti and Sivalingam, and sought court's permission to takeover them.

So far, totally 133 petitions seeking to auction illegally mined stones had been filed and the court was yet to pass any order.

Senior IAS officer U Sagayam is probing allegations of illegal granite quarrying in the district after being appointed by the Madras High Court.

Sagayam, as the then District Collector of Madurai, had in 2011 pegged the loss to the exchequer due to illegal granite mining over the years at around Rs 16,000 crore.