MYSORE: Illegal sand miners are emerging a mafia in Mysore and Chamarajnagar districts. Neither the state government nor the district administrations are taking the issue seriously.
According to police, many politicians from the district are getting huge moolah from the sand miners. If a senior police official has to be believed, a sand miner pays Rs 200 to a politician for each lorry of sand that departs from his dune. And this miner transports about 500 lorry loads of sand daily to Bangalore!
Despite knowing the deals, the officials prefer to look the other way. Instead of taking action against illegal miners, they pounce on farmers, who carry sand from their fields in bullock carts. They say farmers have no licence to indulge in mining.
Many complaints of environmentalists and village panchayats to halt sand mining in Talakadu, which is declared as `protected area' by the government and Archaeological Survey Of India, have not yielded any results.
Last week, when the villagers raised a hue and cry on the issue of sand mining in the protected area, Chamarajnagar district deputy director of geology ordered ban on sand mining and withdrew the licences issued by him earlier. In the order on January 24, the deputy director stated that sand mining in Kukkur village area in T Narsipur taluk has been prohibited as it falls within 3 km radius of the historic Kirthi Narayan Swami temple in Talkadu. The order also notes that the mining in the area has been banned as per the 1994 notification issued by the government. But the sand mining continues unabated there.
According to villagers and environmentalists, the miners have even constructed a road in the Cauvery river bed to lift sand from the river bed. Members of Talkadu Protection Committee point out that on occasions, sand lifted from the protected area is dumped outside to claim that mining is being done out of the prohibited area. For instance, sand is lifted from Mullur village which falls in Kollegal taluk of Chamarjnagar district and shifted to Kukkur village limits to circumvent the ban issued by the Chamarajnagar district authorities.
According to officials, even contractors have no right to lay a road inside the river bed as it is violation of the water resources law. But neither the district administration nor the water resource department engineers have taken cognizance.
