DK Special Report: One phase of sand mining begins

• A little relief to building and home builders

Mangaluru: Sand mining (CRZ limits), which had stopped since the last six months has restarted and hence sand traders and labourers who were entirely dependent on the sand mining, and especially building and home  builders who were facing a severe shortage of sand have now received a slight relief.

Normally, with the onset of monsoon (from June to August 15^th), the Dakshna Kannada (DK) administration passes an order banning sand mining. But this time, due to the auction process, identification of sand bar and other ethical reasons, sand mining failed to restart even after Aug 15^th. Condemning this, sand transporters and sand transporting lorry owners had protested. People’s representatives also had applied pressure demanding the quickening of the sand mining process.

Due to delay in restarting the sand mining, the price of a load sand which was earlier available for Rs 3-4,000 rose drastically to Rs 20,000. This created a lot of problem in the construction of houses and buildings.

Now it’s the labourers problem

Of those who have received permit, most have started sand mining in CRZ limits at Netravati and Phalguni River. As sand mining had stopped, sand labourers had returned back to their hometowns and hence, presently there is a problem of labor shortage. However, the labourers have begun to return back to work and in a few days, full scale of sand mining is expected.

According t the Bathometric survey, there is about 8.5 lakh tonnes of sand available for mining within the CRZ limits at Netravati and Phalguni River. Altogether, it will amount to up to 85,000 lorry loads. 13 blocks have been recognized in Netravati River 4,30,357 metric tonnes of sand is available. This will amount up to 43,027 lorry loads. 9 blocks have been identified in Phalguni River and about 4,20,270 metric tonnes of sand is available here for mining. This amounts up to 42,027 lorry loads.

A meeting was held relating the sand issue on Sep 25^th in Bengaluru which was presided by the chief minister H D Kumarswamy and attended by the district in-charge ministers of DK, Udupi and Uttara Kannada, Minister for Mining and Geology along with the MLA’s o the three districts and in the presence of the higher officials of the department, yet no solution was found. The sand seized from illegal sand mining and from transport cases was being supplied for building Ashraya homes and for government works. But with the stocks depleting quickly, the supply of this sand has now been limited to only emergency works.

Delay in non-CRZ

It is expected that only after sand mining at non-CRZ areas begins will the problem of sand shortage will be actually solved completely. The tender publication for the 15 sand blocks at Netravati, Kuaradhara and Gundya streams has been published on Nov 15^th. It will take another one-and-a-half month for the process to get completed and until then, sand mining shall not begin at the non-CRZ areas. Since the rules have become stricter for non-CRZ sand mining, though the tenders were called for tice, only two persons had participated.

Now, the rules have been made lenient and hence, the participation of more bidders is expected and along with the permission to begin the sand mining.

Sand from 12 blocks

After the completion of several process on the district administration and government levels, in other words, after a period of six months, sand mining in CRZ area in the district has finally begun. For the 12 blocks, 76 persons had applied of which 14 persons have already been given the permit for sand mining for fulfilling the department’s conditions. Even more persons will be provided the permit. Presently, 50 permits have been distributed for mining 500 metric tonnes of sand per person. This process will be carried on forever.