Rourkela: The administration has blocked movement of heavy vehicles, mainly those carrying minerals for industries, on the Kalunga-Bonai Road and the Gurundia-Jarda Road following the request of the public works department.

Hundreds of heavily loaded trucks, carrying iron ore and other minerals, were plying on the 79-km-long Kalunga-Bonai Road and the 27-kim-long Gurundia-Jarda Road. The two roads witnessed an increase in the movement of vehicles following widening and completion of major maintenance. However, this led to widespread resentment among local people because of frequent accidents and the damage being caused to the roads by the heavy vehicles.

"These are district roads meant for withstanding a load of 20 tonne. But, without caring anything for the limit, trucks carrying loads of more than 30 tonne move on it every now and then. They carry raw materials from Koira to various places. As a result, the two roads have started to deteriorate," said local resident Tapan Dandia, who teaches philosophy at Gurundia College.

Another person, who did not want to be named, said: "The mineral-laden trucks mostly move towards Keonjhar, Sundergarh, Jharsuguda, Chhattisgarh and other places. The state government is losing valuable toll tax for them, which is being collected on Biju Expressway."

Assistant executive engineer of PWD Partha Jena said: "We have put up a board near Narendra Chowk near Bonai mentioning complete restriction on movement of these heavy loaded trucks, which was damaging these vital district roads. Besides, accidents increased on these roads."

Jena said: "I informed the executive engineer in Rourkela and he had a discussion with Rourkela police superintendent. Soon, the Bonai sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) was asked to take care of the situation. The police immediately asked us to put a board at Narendra Chowk . And since then, the movement of these vehicles have stopped."

Bonai SDPO Abakash Routray said: "We have stopped the movement of the heavy vehicles on these roads. Especially, our night patrolling on these two stretches have increased and we have the full support of the local people."

Temple loot

A gang of criminals looted the Viswatarini temple in Ghasi-pura area in Keonjhar on Sunday and decamped with cash from the donation box, gold, silver ornaments and other valuables of the Goddess. The estimated value of the stolen articles including cash and jewelleries would be around Rs 5 lakh, police said.