The Madras High Court on Friday refrained from imposing a ban on sand quarrying from Cauvery and Coleroon riverbeds in Tiruchi and Karur districts for 10 years as sought for by a public interest litigant. It, however, imposed conditions such as installation of Internet Protocol cameras on excavators, CCTV cameras on quarry sites and establishment of control rooms in Chennai as well as Tiruchi to keep a check on illegal as well as unscientific mining activities.
In a judgment reserved in the Madurai Bench of the High Court but delivered here, a Division Bench of Justices K.K. Sasidharan and G.R. Swaminathan recorded an undertaking given by Advocate-General Vijay Narayan that the government would evolve a mobile phone app to keep a check on the movement of sand lorries through GPS. It ordered that a ‘customer care centre’ should also be established to address complaints of illegal mining.
Pointing out that Cauvery was one of the seven major rivers of the country and the industrial as well as agricultural prosperity of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka was largely due to the perennial flow of the river, the judges said that unscientific manner of sand mining undertaken by the Public Works Department (PWD) appeared to be the root cause for the damage caused to the river and consequent depletion of the ground water level.
“The [sand] lifting contract is given to persons selected by the PWD. There is no transparent procedure adopted for giving such contracts. The excess mining and illegal mining are mainly at the instance of the lifting contractors. However, action is not taken against them. Similar is the case with the transporting contractors. There is no mechanism as on today to verify as to whether the sand is transported to the actual place of destination,” they added.
‘State alone responsible’
referring to reports submitted by the court-appointed Advocate Commissioners on the status of quarries on Cauvery and Coleroon, the Bench said those reports indicated that the PWD had conducted mining operations outside the leased area and also in excess of the permitted depth. “Such excess quarrying would amount to illegal quarrying... The State alone is responsible for this sorry state of affairs. There is no proper mechanism to check illegal quarrying and excess sand mining.
“The authorities who are given the mandate to operate the sand quarry are not at all concerned with the environment and ecology. They are conducting mining activities in collusion with the mining mafia and looting the natural wealth,” the judges observed and ordered that all mining sites should be closed after mining the quantity of sand permitted by the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA).
Authoring the judgement, Mr. Justice Sasidharan directed the government to initiate both criminal and departmental action against government officials who indulge in illegal or excess quarrying in collusion with lifting agents and transport operators. Further, the present procedure of engaging sand lifting contractors must be abolished and a transparent procedure of engaging them through e-tender must be introduced, he ordered.
Making it mandatory for SEIAA members to visit the proposed mining sites before granting permission, the Bench ordered that every site should be earmarked with stones erected along its boundaries at 50 metre intervals. The height of the riverbed and the shoals and the depth up to which sand could be excavated should be displayed prominently at the sites. Internet Protocol cameras should also be installed on excavators to keep a check on overloading, the court ordered.
