The nexus between officials of groundwater, mines and geology wing and the sand mafia came to light when the ZP chairman, Mr K.Govardhan Reddy, produced a book of nearly 212 pages containing copies of various communications, government orders and court rulings before media persons here on Tuesday. The documents clearly indicated violation of rules and regulations by the departments concerned and loss to the exchequer to the extent of Rs 100 crore. For instance, the Nellore ZP earned Rs 13.67 crore by auctioning sand reaches between 2001 and 2009 as against Rs 46.35 crore during 2009-10 and 2010-11 after the ZP chairman moved court to counter the moves of leaseholders of sand reaches. According to Mr Govardhan Reddy, leaseholders formed a syndicate and one of them obtained a stay against mining in May 2009 for 17 sand reaches after the auction held in April 2009. They managed to secure a stay, taking advantage of the absence of groundwater department clearance for mining in the reaches. Incidentally, the Joint Collector (JC) of Nellore who is also the chairman of the district-level sand committee, directed the deputy director of groundwater department on March 31, 2009 to obtain clearances for all reaches from their director within four days. However, the mines and geology department released a notification for auction of 17 sand reaches on April 18, 2009 even before groundwater gave clearance. Interestingly, mines and geology officials are also part of the district-level sand committee and were present when the JC gave directions to the groundwater wing. The lapse was highlighted by sand-miners to get a stay in court and go ahead with illegal quarrying in the same reaches with the connivance of mines officials, according to Mr Reddy. He demanded a comprehensive probe into the imbroglio to formulate new set of rules and regulations to prevent revenue loss. Explaining lapses on the part of the groundwater department, he said that department local authorities had objected to sand mining in five sand reaches namely, Mulumudi, Sangam, Mudivarthipalem, Pallipadu and Nagarajuthopu in November 2009 but a team from their directorate gave clearance in December.