CHENNAI: A PIL petition has been filed in the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court to restrain the authorities concerned from granting permission for mining beach sand minerals from Chinnavalai fishing hamlet in Manavalakurichi village in Kanniyakumari district. When the petition filed by C Xavier of the hamlet came up before a division bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Sathish Kumar recently, government advocate K Saravanan took notice for the district Collector, Superintendent of Police and Revenue Divisional Officer and advocate G Muthu Saravanan for Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL).
According to petitioner, the hamlet is situated along the shore of the Arabian sea. The seashore area comes under Coastal Regulatory Zone II (CRZ-II) and tidal waves are giant and aggressive in nature. During the Tsunami in 2004, all huts were washed away and many fishermen lost their lives.
On account of the presence of Thorium in the seashore, beach sand mining mafias dug up the shore area and smuggled sea-sand for unlawful enrichment and it has resulted in merging of the landscape with the sea. It has also led to the erosion of seashore and causing a threat to the lives of fishermen.
Whenever they protested against illegal mining, the sand mafias, with the connivance of tainted officials, curbed their voice with muscle and money power. After prolonged agitations, the authorities came to their rescue and stopped illegal sand mining activities for the past three years.
However, the mafias are camping in the seashore of the village and earmarking the locations feasible for mining for the past one month. They had also brought heavy machinery to test the soil to find out the presence of Thorium. On enquiry, petitioner came to know that a shadow society has been formed by the mafias with the alleged connivance of general manager of IREL at Manavalakurichi.
He had also recommended to the district Collector to grant permission to sand smugglers to carry out mining minerals from the seashore of this village and in this connection, the formalities are almost over, the petitioner said.
The petitioner contended and prayed the court to restrain the authorities from granting any permit for mining of beach sand minerals on the seashore of Chinnavalai fishing hamlet. Petitioner also prayed for an interim injunction. The matter is likely to come up again on October 9.