S Thomas, a retired school teacher, is worried that conflict will break out soon at his village Kongurayarkurichi on the banks of Tamirabarani in Tuticorin district. After years of successfully leading protests against sand mining, his neighbour Sam Devasahayam was murdered allegedly by henchmen of the sand mafia, nearly two years ago. Since September, though, in the name of dam desilting at nearby Srivaikuntam, river sand removal has again started, he says. Thomas is afraid that project specs would allow sand to be mined at his village too, leading to destruction of groundwater recharge capacity.
Sand mining is a mega enterprise in this region with each site worth hundreds of crores if not thousands. “While protests like the one in Kongurayarkurichi stopped excessive sand mining in some places, in others, people were paid off. Protests erupted in Srivaikuntam but they too fizzled out. Typically, in all the sites, the control of sand mining is based on caste and features district leaders of both DMK and the AIADMK. With no strong independent political voice, sand mining rarely becomes an issue in elections,” says Ay Gopalasamy, general secretary of Tamirabarani Conservation Movement.
Desilting of the Srivaikuntam check dam — the last of seven such structures on the river — was supposed to benefit thousands of acres of farmland in Srivaikuntam. Based on a petition filed by MDMK leader Vaiko, the National Green Tribunal in Chennai ordered the desilting work. “Work started in September last year. Instead of desilting, however, what is happening is sand quarrying,” says R Nallakannu, veteran CPI leader who has led protests here. “All that was needed to be done was removing the blockage to the supply channels. Instead, with the collusion of PWD, sand mining is happening. We asked for a monitoring committee comprising experts and leaders but the government has not appointed it,” says Nallakannu who hails from Srivaikuntam.
PWD officials, however, deny the allegations. They insist that all the work is being carried out as per tribunal orders. “We periodically report to NGT about the work that has been happening with photographs. The court has directed desilting along seven reaches of the river, nearly 5km down the river. Two reaches have been completed and the third and fourth reaches have been taken up,” says Abdul Hameed, PWD superintending engineer for Tirunelveli. A recent visit by a TOI team to the site at Subramaniapuram, however, seemed to bear out the fears expressed by locals, environmentalists and Nallakannu. While taking photographs, a few people came and demanded from the team that we should return the pictures we took. The team identified itself to them and politely refused. Soon, a dozen men came and started abusing the team. They demanded that the team hand over the camera to them.
Then they rained blows on the TOI photographer and two Srivaikuntam reporters of other publications who were accompanying the team. They also snatched the memory cards from the camera. As this reporter tried to record the event on his cellphone they snatched that too. The local police intervened later and ensured that the chips and the cell phone were returned.
At the site, at least seven Poclain machines were at work in the vicinity — environmentalists have reported 25 – and each machine was filling out a truck once every two minutes. PWD officials had submitted a report to the NGT on April 8 saying that some 2.77 lakh cubic metres of sand-silt combination had been removed from reaches 1 and 2. But back-of-the-envelope calculations show that it may well be possible that two or three times that volume could have been mined.
Calculations also show that while the contractors pay for the sand being removed at the government rate of 141 per cubic metre — as per PWD officials — the market rate for the sand is ten times that figure in Tirunelveli. In Nagercoil, the price of Tamirabarani sand jumps to 15 times that figure but in Kerala it is 20 times. Activists say that much of Tamirabarani sand is sold in Kerala.
Environmentalists dispute the PWD’s report to the tribunal that shows that silt that has little market value accounted for nearly 70% of the material removed. “I am not even sure how they could so accurately account for the silt. Silt is fine material and is found just below the top soil. It would be impossible to separate and exactly measure,” says M Arunachalam, retired professor of environmental sciences at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.
“Without the sand on the floodplain the river loses its purifying and perennial capacity. The sand and the adjoining rows of trees absorb the water and release it into the main channel. Without enough sand, groundwater recharge will be severely affected,” adds Arunachalam who has served on several court-appointed monitoring committees on sand mining.