Sardarpur (Madhya Pradesh): Three tankers containing illegal biodiesel were unearthed and confiscated by a team of the district administration from nearby areas of Rajgarh including Dhobighat, Radha Swami Satsang Ashram and the Power Grid area on Wednesday evening. The tankers with a combined capacity of 22,000 litres were hidden in fields.
The administrative team took this action in compliance with the orders of Collector Dr Pankaj Jain in the wake of the recently reported explosion and fire in an illegal biodiesel godown at Dhulet village.
In the first incident, SDM Bonder Singh Kalesh and SDOP Ram Singh Meda along with police, revenue and food department teams confiscated bio-diesel stored in a 16,000 litres capacity tanker.
According to the officials, the tanker was buried in a field in front of Dhobighat near the old four-lane National Highway at Rajgarh. The offenders used to pump the fuel with a water motor and filled small drums. Similar tankers were also discovered in the fields of Sobharam and Babulal Solanki near Radha Swami Satsang area on Indore-Ahmedabad National Highway. The tankers containing 6,000 litres of fuel were taken out with the help of two cranes.
This action by the administration, has hopefully averted a major accident as ripened wheat and gram crop in hundreds of bighas of such land could have turned into ashes and there was a real possibility of causality of labourers due to negligence while harvesting.
According to sources, there are still hundred or lakhs of litres of illegal biodiesel stored in nearby areas of Rajgarh.
The concerned police station in-charge and beat-in-charge have been suspended to pacify the anger among the people but the laxity in administrative action raises several questions on its functioning.
Gandhwani MLA and former minister Umang Singar raised questions about who is to be held accountable for the biodiesel scandal while addressing the Congress membership campaign programme organised at Bagh on Wednesday. Singar has demanded a probe into the biodiesel incident reported at Rajgarh.
