Kochi: Even as it is revealed that gross errors have crept into the government order stipulating the quantity of sand to be mined from Periyar, it has been pointed out that the sand audit itself was conducted violating an order of the Kerala High Court.
The sand audit was conducted by an NGO called Centre for Socio-Economic and Environment Studies (CSES). Section 9 of the Kerala Protection of River Banks and Regulation of Removal of Sand Act, 2001 provides for fixing the total quantity of sand that can be removed from a kadavu or river bank having due regard to the guidelines of the expert agencies like CESS and CWRDM. Rule 30 prescribes sand audit every three years.
As per an order by a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in Paristhithi Samrakshana Sangham vs State of Kerala and others in 2009, “only after the audit report from the expert body, namely CESS or CWRDM, and giving regard to the said report only, the expert committee under S.9 of the Act shall fix the quantity of sand that can be removed from the kadavus or river bank.”
“Going by the statutory provision as also held by the Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala, the expert agency powered by law is CESS (now NCESS) or CWRDM to conduct the sand audit in rivers. But the sand audit is claimed to have been conducted by an NGO. This is illegal,” said Mr N. Ramachandran, environment and social activist.
“I apprehend that no sand audit is actually done and the report is a bogus one to fool the public. It is not known what was the modus operandi adopted by CSES to assess the quantity of minerable sand in river Periyar,” said Mr Ramachandran.
“Moreover, no sand mining is permitted without having environment clearance issued from the Kerala State Environment Impact Assessment Authority in compliance with the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, as upheld by the National Green Tribunal and High Court of Kerala pursuant to an apex court verdict in Deepak Kumar and others vs. State of Haryana and others (2012 KHC 4150). No environmental clearance has been obtained for sand mining in river Periyar,” he added.
