Mining mafia may kill big rivers
Water experts warn that India’s major rivers, including Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada, Krishna, Godavari and Chambal, could soon dry up due to blatant sand and gravel mining being spearheaded by the mining mafia.
So blatant are their activities that the water experts warn entire river systems are being destroyed by their illegal activities.
Sand is vital for the health of the river system because it acts like a sponge helping to recharge the water table. Its progressive depletion results in plunging water tables and increased velocity of river flow.
Kerala’s second-longest river Bharathappuzha personifies what indiscriminate sand mining can do. Not only have water tables dropped along the length of the river but Palakkad, known as the rice bowl of Kerala, faced one of its worst droughts in 2011.
The situation is no better in Andhra Pradesh with farmers in Guntur having sought relief from the high court to end sand mining on the Krishna river bed.
There are no official figures but experts believe 300 trucks of sand worth `1 crore per annum arrive in Hyderabad every day from the Guntur district.
With sand from the Godavari being considered of better quality than that of the Krishna river, it is being sold at twice the price fetching bigger profits for this mafia.
Till two years ago, the Godavari river was brimming with water but now its waters have shrunk so much so that scores of villages in Paithan tehsil are being forced to buy water from tankers.
No state personifies this more that Madhya Pradesh where over 24,000 cases related to illegal mining have been registered in courts across the state in the last five years.
Mining of iron ore, manganese, bauxite, coal and stone and sand quarrying are being carried along the length of Narmada, Chambal and other leading rivers.
Bhopal-based Right to Information expert Ajay Dubey warns that with 5,469 official mines, one-third of the state is under mining.
“India has the third-largest construction business after China and the US and its 12th Five Year Plan projects an investment of 10 per cent of the GDP amounting to `45 trillion in infrastructure. Massive sand mining is linked to this,” said Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, adding, “It the country’s water sources dry out, we will be hit by a devastating famine that will scourge the length of the land.”
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