Collector directed to take stern action
Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash on Sunday directed District Collector P.M. Ali Asgar Pasha to take stern action against illegal sand-mining from the Bharathapuzha in Shoranur.
Besides illegal sand-mining, hundreds of acres of the riverbed, dried up during the summer, has been converted into vegetable farms. The authorities have not yet taken any action against this.
Though the Shoranur municipality has issued only limited number of passes to mine sand from the Bharathapuzha, passes issued by local bodies in Thrissur district are used to illegally transport sand from Palakkad district.
The Bharathapuzha Protection Committee secretary, Indanur Gopi, said that illegal sand-mining was carried out with the connivance of the Revenue, Water Resources and Police officials.
Roads were cut through the riverbed in Shoranur recently to smuggle the 40-ft high heap of sand, costing crores of rupees, mined from the river during the construction of the Shoranur-Cheruthuruthy check dam recently.
Hundreds of trucks lined up on the dried-up riverbed, violating the ban on the entry of vehicles on the river course, are an everyday sight in the region. Also, hundreds of people can be seen transporting sand in gunny bags on head loads in the Shoranur-Pattambi areas.
Indiscriminate and illegal sand-mining affects the drinking water supply schemes and threatens the very existences of the river. Sand mining has affected water supply schemes in Ottapalam, Shoranur and Pattambi, which depend on the Bharathapuzha water. Every year the depth of the well dug in the middle of the river course for drawing water for the water supply schemes had to be increased due to the depletion of the water table, Mr. Gopi said.The first biodiversity study on the Bharathapuzha conducted by the University Grants Commission in 2001 had found indiscriminate sand-mining as the main reason for the degradation of the river. It found that “indiscriminate sand-mining is a dominant environmental issue throughout the river basin. The entire riverbed is cut up and run over by a very large number of trucks that descend on it daily to transport sand for customers all over South India. The situation is disastrous between Pattambi and Thirunavaya, where both legal and illegal sand quarrying goes on unabatedly.”
Despite various studies on the destructive effects of widespread sand mining, the authorities were turning a blind eye to the destruction of the Bharathapuzha river valley system, said P.S. Panikkar, secretary, Malampuzha Dam Protection Committee.
Keywords: illegal sand mining, Bharathapuzha, Adoor Prakash, Ali Asgar Pasha
Bharatpuzha once represented the very essence of being a malayali.
countless poets have been inspired by the serenity of this majistic
river. As a childhood i remember enjoying vacation by early morning
bathing and swiming in bharatpuzha. Tears roll in my eyes when i see
the current state of river in my village (which is close to shornur)
mentioned above. Due to excessive mining the river has turned dirty
and there is no water life like fish. The so called golden river bed
can now been seen only in old malaylam films. It has been replaced by
mud and weeds. Truly we managed to kill the very essence of being a
malayali. All for greedy purpose. sad ..very sad..
Well way back in 1986 i submitted a report on the problems a river ecosystem may face if the
sand borrowing from the channels was not banned by the government. Altnernatively, sand
or fine aggregate and coarse aggregate used by the construction sector, roads and such
other aassets could be manufactured by crushing, grinding and sizing of hard rocks like
black and light granite. Being what we are none in the government worrie about it instead
what the state got was sort of a licenced sand borrowing approve by the cess and cwrdm -
an outcome from a pil filed by ms. Sugathakumari and others. This was the last blow on the
health of the small and large rivs of kerala. Ispite of the upper courts ru,ling on t he pil like
thiry plus years ago, no one is keen on requesting the upper court to review their .judgement
in the light of the fate of all the major rivers of kerala.
The fate of the ecosystem of the rivers is the outcome of a skewed scientific conjecture by
the scientific organistions.
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