Berhampur, July 22: The Ganjam district administration has seized 5,000 tonnes of granite from a ship called Jal Vahini at Gopalpur Port that is managed by Odisha Stevadors Limited.

Chatrapur sub-collector Sudhakar Sabar, tehsildar Subhendu Sahu and inspector in charge of marine police station Ashok Kumar Parida raided the ship on Thursday midnight and seized the granite. The ship had already left the berth with the stones and anchored a few metres away when the raid took place.

The tehsildar has served a showcause notice to the Gopalpur Port authority.

The ship, which belongs to a Mumbai-based company, was to set out for Bangladesh. No one has been arrested.

Two trade union leaders - Narayan Reddy and Daniel Das - have criticised the role of the port management. "The shipment of granite to any foreign country is totally illegal," said Reddy.

However, Gopalpur Port director Man Mohan Maharana said: "It is not illegal to ship granite." He said he had taken a lease to mine granite from the Palur Hills under Kanisi tehsil for five years. He sold this granite to Paradip Transport Private Limited, which was transporting it to the Dhaka Exports Brothers, in collaboration with Dal Green Agro Private Limited, Calcutta. He claimed that the Dhaka Exports Brothers had custom licence.

The tehsildar said one had to apply through the special provision of "R" form from the tehsildar when transporting from the quarry. "No permission was sought by Man Mohan Maharana. He had engaged 272 labourers to load the granite stones on the ship. A total of 9,500 tonnes of granite were to be loaded on the ship," Sahu said.