A grim sight greets the eye as the roads wind towards a sleepy fishing hamlet called Periyasamypuram in Tuticorin district, Tamil Nadu. There is red and brown everywhere — a desert-like landscape with even the few remaining palms drying up. The residents of this small village are equally grim and not people to mess with. They have managed to kick the beach sand mining mafia right out of their village.
“We all got together and held a truck hostage,” says village head Irudaya Jebamalai, a wrinkled old man who is hard of hearing. “We thrashed the driver so he ran away. We refused to let the truck filled with sand go until all the authorities turned up. The police inspector of Surangudi station said he would lock me up if I opposed quarrying. The village administrative officer was also with him at that time. We kept calling the tahsildar but he never came,” he says.
Periyasamypuram is an aberration in the line of fishing villages along the coast of Tuticorin. Most others have succumbed to terror tactics of the illegal beach sand mining mafia. Money, coercion, divide-and-rule and threats are the norm. Villagers are helpless in the face of their might, especially with local authorities colluding with them. “We have tried to petition every official — sub-collectors, various collectors over the past five years, but they only threaten us, tell us to go back,” says Anthony Rayappan, a young fisherman. “But this is our village. We have to fight for it.”
The pastor of Periyasamypuram, Father Selva George, shakes his head at the ruin brought on by the mining mafia. “At first we allowed them to operate but after a few years we realised that this mining is destroying our village,” he says. “Look around you. Fish catch has come down, the palm trees have dried up, ground water has turned brackish and the sea is entering our village. No trees grow here except neem,” he adds.
It was due to the petitions of such people that the then collector of Tuticorin Ashish Kumar launched raids on illegal sand quarries near Periyasamypuram, and neighbouring villages Vaippar, Vembar and Periyathaalai in August 2013. Within eight hours of the raids, he was transferred and made headlines across the country. Protests from villagers across the southern coast forced the state government to swing into action. In September 2013, the then chief minister Jayalalithaa ordered a ban on beach sand mining in five districts of the state and constituted a special team headed by senior IAS officer Gagandeep Singh Bedi to probe into the matter.
Raising an Alarm
On January 23, a PIL came up for hearing in the Madras High Court (HC). Renowned geologist Victor Rajamanickam filed the PIL which asks the court to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe illegal beach sand mining. “This is a fight which started in the 1980s,” says Rajamanickam.
“In 1986, I began my studies of the beaches in South India. As we tried to conduct our research, my colleagues were beaten up and our vehicles were blocked from entering the beaches. The mafia had taken full rights of the beach and were not allowing anyone to move around. At that time I was in service and could not do anything. Post retirement I am free. I am least bothered what the government wants to do and what the mafia wants to do. I have decided to fight for justice,” he says.
The PIL alleges that rare beach sand minerals worth Rs 1 lakh crore have been illegally exported out of the country. Rajamanickam says in his affidavit that officials at the Centre and the state are hand in glove with the mafia, enabling them to escape punitive action. The Madras HC has asked the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government to respond within eight weeks.
The most curious documents which are part of the PIL, however, are a set of mining licences issued by the Tamil Nadu Geology and Mining Department to a private company VV Minerals based in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. These licences are run of the mill except for one fact — they authorise the private company to mine and export monazite.
Significance of Monazite
Monazite is an atomic mineral found in the beach sands of the southern and eastern coasts of the country. “World monazite resources are estimated to be about 12 million tonnes, two-thirds of which are in heavy mineral sands deposits on the south and east coasts of India as per the World Nuclear Association,” said expert Bahram Ghiassee of London’s Kingston University. He has studied the beach minerals in India.
Minerals found in the sands of our beaches along with monazite include ilmenite, rutile, zircon and garnet. Monazite can be processed to remove thorium and uranium, both of which are nuclear fuels. “By itself, monazite is not of great significance,” says K Santhanam, top nuclear scientist and a key member of the Pokhran II team. “You will have to put it in a reactor, cook it and you get Uranium-233, which is a fissile material.”
Due to these properties, monazite has been put on the Prescribed Substances List, i.e. it can only be mined by the Union government and not by any private party. Yet, the Tamil Nadu government has approved licences for its mining by a private party.
The 16 licences that form part of the PIL are to mine monazite and all 16 have been given to one company — VV Minerals, the largest player in the country in the rare earths space. Approvals issued by the Centre in 2002-03 for certain plots of land to mine ilmenite, rutile and garnet clearly state that monazite may not be mined.
But ten years later, in 2012-13, these approvals have been cited by the Tamil Nadu government again. The only difference is that mining of monazite has also been approved. Also, royalties are mentioned at Rs 125 per tonne, meaning that permission has been given to export monazite.
“The Tamil Nadu government and the Government of India (GoI) are responsible,” says retired IAS officer MG Devasahayam. “These minerals are under a GoI Act. If a gang is operating, what is the security apparatus doing? This is a massive mafia, far worse than any mafia we have seen so far,” he adds.
VV Minerals chairman V Vaikundarajan told ET Magazine that various committees had probed the area and found no evidence of illegal mining. He denied charges of illegal monazite mining and exports. “Look at the documents, they are only inclusion of minerals,” said Vaikundarajan.
“The state can include minerals to the original lease. There is no illegality. In fact, we are the only company to have environmental clearances for all our quarries,” he said.
Up until 1998, only the GoI could mine rare earth minerals. In 1998, laws were amended (see What the Law Says) allowing private players to mine rare earths but monazite was still off limits. For monazite, the approval of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was needed.
In response to an email questionnaire by ET Magazine, the DAE stated that neither the DAE nor the Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) has given approvals to any private company to mine and export monazite.
“As per the available records, the AMD has not recommended ‘NOC’ to any private party for mining monazite,” said the DAE. “The AMD or the DAE is not aware of issuance of licences to mine monazite by the Tamil Nadu government,” it added.
Yet, the TN government issued licences to mine monazite. Neither the state industries department nor the department of geology and mining which issued the licences responded to ET Magazine’s queries. “The state has no right to issue licences,” says TK Ramkumar, a lawyer specialising in environmental law. “The licences must be scrapped as they are invalid.”
A Silent State
While the state-initiated probe in late 2013 in five districts has been completed and the report handed over to the chief minister and the industries department, the report itself has not been made public. Repeated RTI requests have not yielded results either.
Sources say the monazite licence question has been asked in the report and action recommended against officials responsible. But the state remains silent, preferring to take no action. Central government officials admit that enormous illegal mining and exports of rare earth minerals are taking place but are unaware as to why no action has been taken yet.
A compelling reason to put an end to the illegal activity is 12-year-old Subhash, a resident of Uvari village, Tirunelveli. His kidneys failed five years ago and he is unable to sleep, suffering terrible headaches and stomach pain. He has begun dialysis. “There are lots of adults and some kids too who are affected like this,” says his aunt Ujaans. “A boy died of kidney failure a month ago.”
Residents in Uvari say their health problems are due to the inhalation of the red dust that has settled all over their homes. Barely 200 metres away, earth movers continue digging through an entire mountain for the precious beach sand.
Further south in Kanyakumari, activists say the sea has come inland by at least a kilometre thanks to the mining of beach sand over the past two decades. Fisherman Joey, who lives near Manavalakurichi, Kanyakumari, points to a tree some distance into the sea.
“When I was ten years old, we used to play near that tree,” he says. “There used to be houses where the sea now is. We keep moving our homes back as the sea comes in.” Dr Ghiassee stresses the need for enforcement of existing laws. “India has the requisite legal instruments [legislation],” he says. “However, effective enforcement is the key to safeguarding the interest of the nation, public health and the ecological systems.”
Environmental and health issues plague the residents living along Tamil Nadu’s southern coastline, apart from the real and present danger posed by an increasingly irreverent and hostile beach sand mining mafia. A state concerned about the well being of its citizens must take quick and firm actions. And since the state is not doing its job, people like Jebamalai are forced to live in fear and battle the mafia all on their own.
Source: The Economic Times
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