Chennai: The Vellore head constable Kanakaraj was not the first victim of illegal sand mining. Nor is he likely to be the last. Many Kanakarajs have gone down as martyrs who vainly tried to stop illegal sand miners ever since sale of sand was nationalised in 2003.
Parties may come to power or lose it, but the sand mafia continues to thrive. A few revenue, PWD, transport or mines department officials have been occasionally prosecuted for graft and nexus, but it could not be said that the whole business of sand mining had been put to an end.
The main stakeholders blame only the government. Sand lorry operators claim that stockyards and loading contractors contribute to the monopoly and the illegal mining and sale of sand. “Loader is the trader. Only the loading contractor has changed. PWD engineers don’t collect demand drafts at the quarries anymore. The loaders move sand to their stockyards, from where we are compelled to buy at a price fixed by them,” alleged S. Yuvaraj, president, TN Sand Lorry Owners Federation.
“The loader insists that we should buy not less than three units per truck, but the government invokes rule 114 of Motor Vehicles Act and offloads the extra unit of sand midway. Offloaded sand vanishes before we supply the two units to the customer and return,” Yuvaraj claimed. He added that the mafia mines sand by exploiting the ban imposed in Kancheepuram.
“We have to rely on very few quarries in Tiruvallur and Vellore or go all the way up to Villupuram where priority is given to local trucks. This is where the mafia pitches in. They use tractors and sometimes trucks,” he added pointing out Chennai and suburbs require up to 12,000 loads per day, but only a maximum of 2,000 loads are available in Tiruvallur and Arakkonam. Hence mafia exploit the supply-demand mismatch and sell loads for price as high as Rs 15,000 per two units.
“Officials from top to bottom are involved in the illegal sand trade. Neither Kerala nor Andhra engages mechanised sand loading, except TN. Only a particular group of people is allowed to own stockyards even,” argued CPI leader R. Nallakannu who ended overexploitation of Tamirbarani river by moving the hight court. “The court suggestd a panel of judges, geologists and division of zones. All that has been diluted,” Nallakannu said.He added the government must ration cement and sand based on building plan as was done in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
