The move to resume sand-mining in Pampa has invited widespread criticism from various environmental organisations in Central Travancore.
The government has reportedly issued an order favouring resumption of sand-mining from Pampa on the basis of a recommendation received from the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) in this regard.
Talking to The Hindu , Pampa Parirakshana Samiti general secretary N.K. Sukumaran Nair said the government decision had sounded the death knell of the already degraded river.
According to Mr Nair, the CESS has not conducted any proper sand audit in the Pampa. He said the study or ‘sand audit’ carried out by a few retired CESS scientists, using college students, in Pampa did not have any legal validity in the present context.
As per Section 9(b) of the Kerala Protection of River Banks and Regulation of Removal of Sand Act-2001, granting permission for sand-mining is vested with the district-level expert committee on the basis of the CESS recommendation.
Mr Nair said sand-mining from below the water level could never be permitted as per the expert panel report of the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2010 and the Supreme Court judgement of February 27, 2012. In the present context, sand-mining in Pampa could be carried out only below the water level, he said.
The Pampa riverbed in the panchayat limits of Thottappuzhasserry and Aranmula has been lowered three to four metres below the sea level.
Ironically, river sand-mining has been recommended from these two panchayats for reasons best known to the authorities concerned, he alleged.
Mr Nair alleged that the Central Water Commission had even detected salinity intrusion in Pampa upto Aranmula, earlier, and permission for sand quarrying in this river stretch will be disastrous, he said.
All-Kerala River Protection Council vice-president V.N. Gopinatha Pillai said the government decision to permit such a grossly unscientific sand mining in Pampa would only further speed up the degradation of the river system.
Lowering of riverbed
Mr Pillai said the indiscriminate sand-mining in Pampa over the past three decades had resulted in the lowering of riverbed to an alarming condition and drastic depletion of the ground water table. This has led to drying up of wells and acute drinking water scarcity right on the river banks itself during the summer months, he said. Thomas P. Thomas, academic-turned environmentalist, called upon the government not to permit sand-mining in the Pampa at this juncture.
