Illegal mining and trade of sea sand has gone up due to the lowering of surveillance in coastal areas of the district by Revenue officials, who have now been redeploy for Lok Sabha election duties.
The ban on river sand mining that is still prevailing in some areas of the district has come in as a boon for the miners who are exploiting the situation to strike gold by marketing the product at a huge price.
For a sack of sea sand, the illegal traders now charge around Rs.100.
Varying priceAccording to sources in the construction industry, this price vary according to the demand.
Though the trend was initially confined to the interior costal regions of the district, it has now spread to the urban areas.
Unnoticed locationsMany a time, the sea sand miners make use of young workers and migrant labourers to collect the sea sand and store it in unnoticed locations.
Later, small goods vehicles are used to cart away the illegal product during the night hours.
The hubs of such illegal sea sand miners are the coastal areas of Vadakara, Azhiyoor, Madakkara and Mukachery, where Revenue officials are finding it difficult to coordinate the checking drive along with Lok Sabha election duties assigned to them.
Last week, the police seized nearly two loads of sand, secretly procured from the Beypore coastal region, following a tip-off by local people.
No stopsDespite the police cracking down on some groups and seizing several loads of illegally procured sand, the trend has not stopped.
Paid informersAccording to the police officials, some of the local residents are emerging as “paid informers” for the sand traders.
A fisherman from Beypore says the sea sand miners are mainly extracting sand from the areas close to the sea wall.
Damage to sea wall“If the trend continues, it will surely damage the wall in many places. The police and the revenue officials are also aware of this fact,” he says.
Another fisherman from Poonarvalappu, a coastal area near Beypore, alleges that the Revenue Department is encouraging the sand trade often through public auctioning of the seized product.
For profit“They are very much aware that sea sand is not recommended for quality constructions, but, for profit, they are also reselling it,” he says.
People from the coastal areas in Vadakara say the continuing shortage of river sand and the diminishing surveillance on sea sand mining will lure several youngsters to the illegal trade.
V. Prabhakaran, a resident of Muttungal near Vadakara, says many people find the re-trading of sea sand an “effortless task”, as there is no filtering process done prior to selling.
“They sell the raw product in sack and earn quick profit for a luxury life,” he says.
