Pursuing Riches, Miners Plunder Tamil Nadu’s River Sand

Unrelenting demand for cement drives illegal and damaging industry.

By Sibi Arasu
Circle of Blue – May 31, 2017

Needless to say, there is river and beach sand aplenty in Tamil Nadu. At 130,000 square kilometres (50,200 square miles), the state is about the same size as Nicaragua. Ninety-five rivers with sandy bottoms and shorelines cut across it. There are at least 17 sand-rich river basins. With the Bay of Bengal forming its eastern border, Tamil Nadu also has the second longest sandy beachfront in India, stretching over 1,076 kilometers (670 miles).

For almost all of its thousand year history Tamil Nadu took all that sand for granted. No longer. India’s construction boom, which this year is projected to generate $US 165 billion of India’s $2.5 trillion gross domestic product, is largely built on concrete that requires millions of tons of sand.

Various estimates by universities and media groups find that sand mining is now a 500 million-metric-ton annual industry in India that employs 35 million people and could generate over $50 billion a year in revenue. Those same investigators assert that much of India’s sand is mined illegally by miners who not only defy national regulators and court orders to halt the unlawful practices, but also intimidate and sometimes murder their critics. Sand mining in India is a classic example of development goals submerging ecological safety.

Among the industry’s many targets is 50-year-old S Mugilan, a grassroots activist whose life is a study in what his colleagues view as courage and his family thinks amounts to recklessness. The latest attack came in mid-December 2016. At a bend in the road a lorry blocked the route along which Mugilan was travelling with an activist colleague and his three children. They were driving back at night from a public meeting against the plundering of sand from the River Cauvery by politically connected contractors and sand-mining agents near the Tamil Nadu town of Karur.

A dozen hired thugs fell upon their car. ‘Managing to open the door, they pulled me out legs first but I clung on desperately,” Mugilan said in an interview. “They grabbed my throat and asked me to leave Karur and never come back. Even though it lasted for only about 10 minutes, they managed to hurt me pretty badly. The locals, seeing us being attacked, rushed to the car and the thugs dispersed. The children were traumatized.”

Later that night, Mugilan visited the home of the district collector, who serves as the area magistrate, held a dharna, a sit-n  (sit-in), while requesting a case of criminal assault to be registered. Mugilan demonstrated for hours.

The next morning he learned that a counter-charge had been registered, alleging that Mugilan and his companions were the perpetrators of the violence. ”This is what usually happens. It’s just another day in the life of anyone like me who the powers-that-be are afraid of,” he said. “At least now we know that we are making a real impact here.”

The Costs of Rampant Sand Mining

Mugilan’s work, and that of a small group of other mining opponents, is aimed at one outcome: protecting Tamil Nadu’s rivers, aquifers and beaches. Mining large amounts of sand causes significant erosion on river beds, shorelines, and on the state’s beaches. The cascade of damaging effects from mining include bird and fish habitats ruined by runaway sand in water columns. Riverbeds also perform vital hydrological functions. They store water and allow aquifers to refill. And by absorbing water they can limit damage from flooding. Because of aggressive mining bottoms two of the state’s major rivers, the Thamirabarani and the Palar, have dropped 15 meters (50 feet) in the past two decades, according to state measurements.

The Tamil government estimates that between 5,500 and 6,000 truckloads, each measuring of 200 cubic feet of sand each are mined in Tamil Nadu every day. But Mugilan puts the number much higher, at 90,000 truckloads or more. He also disputes the state public works department’s assertion that the market rate for sand is $US 105 to $US 120 per truckload. The actual price, he says, is $US 300 to $US 600, and much more if it is trucked out of state.

Those kind of numbers galvanizes miners. Sand mining on the Bay of Bengal shoreline is so rampant that entire stretches of beaches have disappeared. Just one case filed in the Madras High Court alleges that $14 billion worth of sand was illegally mined by a single mafia boss and his company. In the village of Idinthakarai, Mugilan and other activist assert that mining opponents have been brutally killed for raising their voices in protest.

‘This state’s natural resources are being destroyed in the name of development,” said Mugilan. “People need to understand that natural resources are their common property. They have to protect them from those who are trying to exploit them for commercial purposes.”