The State government on Friday justified the restrictions imposed on sale of imported river sand and contended that it had been made mandatory for importers to sell the consignment only to the Public Works Department (PWD) to prevent illegal and indiscriminate mining of local riverbeds in the guise of selling imported sand.
Filing a counter-affidavit in reply to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by L. Adimoolam, publisher of a Tamil daily, the PWD Secretary, K. Padmanabhan, said that the petitioner should have appreciated the steps taken by the State government instead of challenging the restrictions imposed on the sale of imported sand.
Further, stating that a person could be permitted to file a PIL petition only to espouse the cause of those who could not approach the court, the secretary said that importers of river sand who had the wherewithal to spend crores of rupees to import the commodity do not require the help of a public interest litigant to redress their grievances.
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The State government also fears that if private individuals and firms are allowed to sell imported sand on their own, it would lead to “poor monitoring against illegalities by the enforcing departments ... It would not be possible for the enforcing officials to differentiate between imported river sand and illegally quarried domestic sand,” it claimed.