Stones are extracted from Charnath river in Dhanusha at the foot of Chure hills using excavators and are crushed at a crusher company north of the river before they are exported to India. [break]
Though in view of the ban imposed by the government, the whole operation can be deemed as illegal, CDO of Siraha Dhruba Prasad Dhakal insists that export of stones is legal. “Export of stones and pebbles is not illegal,” CDO Dhakal said when asked for his comments.
Around 50 trucks of crushed stones are exported to India every day from the crusher company, Kamala Stone. Pramod Kumar Das, chief of district customs office at Madar, Siraha, conceded that truckloads of stones cross the border to Jayanagar, India, every day. “We charge Rs 200 for every cubic meter of stone. We are allowing the export as per the permission given by District Development Committee, Dhanusha,” Das said.
He revealed that revenue of around Rs 2,800 to Rs 3,200 is being generated from each truck on a daily basis.
Chief at the statistics section of District Development Committee, Dhanusha, Nanda Kishore Singh claimed that the stones that are being exported were in stock before the imposition of ban. “We allowed the exports to continue after it was verified that the stones were part of the stock before the ban,” Singh said.
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