Even as the Enforcement Directorate is investigating allegations of serious irregularities in the mining and sale of river sand in Tamil Nadu, a top official in the Water Resources Department has urged senior engineers of the Sand Mining & Monitoring Division to clean up the “internal mess” and disclose every inch of illegal sand mining sites to the central investigating agency.
In a letter sent to executive engineers and assistant executive engineers in Chennai, Villupuram, Tiruchi, Thanjavur and Madurai on Thursday, October 12, 2023, the WRD Engineer-in-Chief & Chief Engineer General, A. Muthaiya said: “This is the time of urgency where we have to clean our internal mess in our organisation and disclose every inch of illegal mining sites to the Directorate of Enforcement, the agency investigating this offence of money laundering.”
Mr. Muthaiya called for Income Tax returns of the department’s officials and their family members for the last three financial years and the list of properties owned by them, with their current market value. The officials were directed to send their reply by Friday night.
