Mafia thrives, state loses its sand

pilot car leading a row of four or five sand trucks from Mysore makes a halt at the first checkpost, Jaypur and after the driver hobnobs with the staff, the convoy is waved ahead, shockingly with no entry made in the books or sales tax paid.

The scene is played out at the checkposts at Antarsante, Udbhur, Balle and Bawali, the last on the Karnataka side before the trucks enter Kerala. The sand trucks may have never travelled from Mysore on the route as there is no record of them at any of the checkposts, even at Bawali which is manned by the police and officials of the forest and sales tax departments.

But with Kerala making no such omissions in its records, the game is given away. As many as 400 trucks bearing Karnataka registrations carried 1.2 lakh cubic feet of sand from Mysore to the neighbouring state in merely nine months between October 2013 and June 2014, going by Kerala checkpost entries. While one of the sand trucks (KA – 45 5706) made 38 trips during the nine months, another truck (KA 45 5504) made 30 trips, reveal checkpost details obtained under the Right to Information Act by an environmentalist, who prefers anonymity.

While the sand mafia tries to make big bucks in Kerala where sand mining is strictly restricted. The artificial scarcity created in Karnataka in the process pushes up costs here to up to Rs 40,000 a truckload. But this is still nowhere near what it fetches in Kerala, where the illegal sand miners pocket a cool Rs 60,000 or Rs 80,000 a truckload and sometimes even a lakh per load. There seems to be no stopping them as although the demand for sand fell around June in Kerala when the monsoon set in, it is expected to rise again from October onwards when construction resumes in full.

Interestingly, the illegal sand miners appear to be thriving in Karnataka’s Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, which is expected to protect not just the animals in the sanctuary but also its natural resources.

In fact, conservator of forests R. Gokul, who heads the reserve, had played a crucial role in exposing the illegal iron ore transportation from Karwar. With the authorities looking the other way, there is huge concern now over the long term sustainability of sand resources in areas like T. Narasipura around Mysore.

Former president of the All India Motor Transport Congress, G. R. Shanmugappa, says the government is aware of the sand being taken to Kerala but is doing nothing about it.
“We met PWD minister H.C. Mahadevappa and explained about the sand being illegally taken to Kerala from Mysore, but the minister refused to acknowledge such an operation even exists,” he regrets, adding that although Karnataka needs about 10,000 truckloads of sand per day, the government issues only 800 to 900 permits, encouraging illegal transportation even within the state.

KARNATAKA’s loss is KERALA’s GAIN

Around 1,19,700 cubic feet of sand was illegally transported to Kerala from Mysore between October 2013 and June 2014.

As many as 399 trucks with Karnataka registration numbers made close to 450 trips to Kerala from Mysore during this
period.

A truckload of sand, which costs anywhere between Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000, is sold for between Rs 60,000 and Rs 80,000 in Kerala.

This summer, each truckload from Mysore fetched Rs 1 lakh.

All the trucks passed seven checkposts of the police, forest department and PWD between Mysore and Bawali without any record being made of them as inter-state
mining of sand ha been prohibited since 2011.

While the Kerala government has brought in strict measures to protect its natural sand deposits, no such steps have been taken in Karnataka