The illegal search for gemstones has resumed in the Eastern Ghats – and a police action followed.
Visakhapatnam:The illegal search for gemstones has resumed in the Eastern Ghats – and a police action followed. Tuesday saw the arrest of 10 workers and sacking of two outsourcing employees of the forest department. These men were caught red-handed while mining for semi precious stones in Siganapalli under Koyyru mandal in ASR district.
Notably, there was a flurry of activity in late 90s, when gem stone traders from Rajasthan, Mumbai and even Sri Lanka pitched their tents in Visakhapatnam and traded in uncut semi-precious stones.
At that time, the state government intervened to stop the illegal mining activity after an incident in which several labourers lost their lives. Mud caved in on them while doing the digging in the rains. A team of personnel from the forest, revenue and police was formed and the illegal mining was brought under control. However, after a few years’ gap, the mining resumed discreetly on the hills in the agency areas.
“They mostly mine on full moon or new moon days and their activity goes unnoticed. To stop this, we have now established a base camp in Siganapalle and built an informers’ network,’’ said ASR district forest officer YV Narsimha Rao. Rao said awareness camps were also being held to explain the danger involved in vertical mining, which is also called ‘rat hole’ mining.
People are mining in an area spread over 10,000 hectares covering three villages surrounding the Siganapalli quarry.
Prof Yugandhar of the geology department of Andhra University notes that gemstones are abundant in the Eastern Ghats. Mostly, Alexandrite, Chrysoberyl, Garnet, Ruby and Sapphire are found. Former head of the same department, Prof C Ksipathi, led a survey team two decades ago. They found the existence of 51.26 tonnes of alexandrite reserves in Visakhapatnam district.
Considering the geology, field relations, structural features and lithological controls, geo-scientific exploration was carried out in some of the important gem-bearing locations of AP to estimate these reserves.
