It is reported that district administrations of both Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam decided to temporarily ban sand mining in the rivers and reservoirs, even as the real estate and construction industry in Kerala is facing an acute shortage of sand for building purposes. Worse still, sand brought to the State from neighboring Tamil Nadu comes at exorbitant prices.
In Thiruvananthapuram, the district panchayat’s plan to allow desilting of the Aruvikkara reservoir the major source of drinking water for the capital city and to use the extracted sand for construction has raised the hackles of environmentalists who fear that it will have negative impacts on public health, the environment and the biodiversity of waterbodies.
In Kochi, a district level expert committee suggested a temporary ban on sand-mining in the district’s river ghats until the government could properly establish the outlets of Kalavara an initiative of the State’s building centre, Nirmithi Kendra.
Eco concerns
Both these initiatives are motivated by understandable environmental concerns. According to a Coastal Management Sourcebook published by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, river mining removes sediment before it reaches the shoreline.
As populations and economies, especially in coastal regions such as Kerala, grow and develop into more resource-consuming entities, and construction materials change from traditional wood, bamboo and thatching to steel, cement and concrete, so too has the demand for sand. River sand is good for construction since it is salt-free, compared with beach sand. However, its removal reduces the amount of sand available for transport to the beach.
As a result of insufficient accessible, inland deposits of sand to satisfy the demands of the construction and building industry, sand mining along beaches and shorelines, as well as in rivers both legal and illegal has increased in several parts of the developing world.
