Dhenkanal, July 29: The district administration has launched a crackdown on illegal stone crusher units for the past three days.

So far, 149 stone crushers located in various parts of Hindol and Odapada area in the district have been sealed.

The crackdown was launched after the district monitoring squad had detected operation of illegal crushers in such a large scale. They have permission from neither the state pollution control board nor the local revenue authorities.“We had to take such steps after learning that these had been running without obtaining required permissions from the authorities. The units were causing air polluting,” said Dhenkanal collector Rupa Roshan Sahu.

“Till date, we have closed 149 such errant units, and more will come under it in the coming days. Police have also been asked to initiate action for running these units illegally,” said the collector.

“In 2010, we initiated an action against these units. But, the errant units came up once again,” said regional officer of the state pollution control board S. Dash.

Dash said the crusher operators did not follow the siting criteria that a unit should be set up 200 metres from national highway and 500 metres from a village.

Further they did not have the permission to establish the unit nor the consent to operate. He also warned that if anybody broke the seal without valid permission after fulfilling the criteria, they would be prosecuted.