Will sand mining resume even after the rains?

Every government activity seems to have its own sluggish and drawn-out rhythm! It's unrealistic to expect that urgency or circumstances will suddenly speed it up. Authorised sand mining from the state's rivers was halted in 2016 following an order from the Union Ministry of Environment. While this mining had been conducted under government control with passes and licenses in place, illegal mining cartels, with the covert support of some officials, managed to extract and smuggle out multiple times more sand than the official quota. Anyway, following the Union Ministry's order, sand mining, whether known to the government or not, came to a complete standstill. With sand availability drastically reduced, the construction sector was brought nearly to a halt. Now, nearly a decade later, the State Revenue Department has finally approved a survey report prepared by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for resuming sand mining from the rivers.

Even though it took nearly ten years, we still can’t say the matter has been resolved. Now that the guidelines have been approved, the Revenue Department must issue a notification setting the standards for sand mining. Based on that, tenders must be invited, and subsequent steps should follow. Only after all this is done and sand mining begins can we understand how much usable sand can actually be extracted from the rivers, which are now filled with silt and clay. The state government had announced in the 2024–25 budget that sand mining from rivers would be resumed. A preliminary estimate suggests that around 15 million metric tonnes of sand, worth approximately Rs 1,500 crore, can be mined from rivers in just eight districts. It's important to remember that it took a decade of studies, surveys, and reports by various agencies to reach this stage. The Revenue Department and the government must now show urgency in speeding up the remaining steps.

Back in 2021, during the flood season, the course of the Pamba River had changed. As part of riverbed cleaning, the Irrigation Department dredged up the accumulated mud, sand, and silt and stored it along the shore. There was a plan to extract usable sand from this for construction, but it soon became clear that it wasn’t practical. Separating sand from the fine, clay-laden soil turned out to be technically unfeasible, and the plan was eventually abandoned. After nearly ten years without any sand mining, it’s hard to say how many feet of silt and clay now cover the riverbeds. While permits, guidelines, and frameworks are being prepared, the first priority must be to assess the technical feasibility and practicality of the mining process.

The monsoon will begin in a few days, and it is impossible to predict whether it will be as intense as a flood. Therefore, the sand mining project cannot be implemented during this rainy season. Over the past ten years, sand worth several thousand crores may have flowed into the sea. While it is true that new sand deposits may form, due to coastal erosion and increasing landslides, the composition of sand beds in rivers is no longer the same as before. The sand that has washed away is lost forever. There is a line in the Kathakali play Nalacharitham that says, "Paathasaam nichayam varnnozhinjhalavu..."—meaning, “what use is damming the stream after the water has already flowed away?” But in the case of sand, a vital resource for the construction sector, this attitude is not viable. Only if guidelines for sand mining are issued and the necessary follow-up steps are completed quickly can mining possibly resume in the season after the monsoon.