It wasn’t long ago when thermal power projects in the coastal district of Srikakulam had sparked off violent protests. The area is reeling under another sort of assault on its ecological balance now, this time from beach sand mining. A mining lease to Trimex Heavy Minerals Pvt Ltd for its Bhavanapadu Mineral Sands Project—spread over 1,788 hectares along the mandals of Santhabommali and Vajrapakothuru—is generating another public agitation. Trimex proposes to mine rich minerals like sillimanite, zircon, garnet, ilmenite, rutile etc along the coast. Some of these minerals can go into making alloys in the heavy metal industry for manufacture of aircraft and the like. But during a public hearing on August 11, farmers and fishermen of 60 villages registered their protest saying the project would affect their livelihood. Villagers cultivate cashew, coconut, mango, paddy in this fertile area, apart from fishing. The area, popularly known as Uddanam, is considered a natural paradise with its lush green vegetation. This is what is threatened now.
“This project will lead to the scraping of sand from five metres to 20 metres below sea level. This will disturb the originality of soil and affect groundwater conditions,” says G. Krishna Rao, retired professor of geology, Andhra University. Rao cites several loopholes in the environment impact assessment (EIA) report submitted by Trimex which claims that sand will be dumped back along the coast once the minerals are extracted. “Soil is not like a machine where you dismantle parts and assemble it again. Once the minerals are extracted, only 50 per cent of sand will be left and it will take centuries for it to regain its original fertility,” says the geologist.
There is also the fear that villages would turn into isolated islands with sand being dug up all around them. T. Varada Raju of Devunatalda village, which falls in the project zone, says fishing activity will be severely restricted by sand mining. Last year, Trimex established a mineral separation plant, the Sri Kurmam project, in a 7.2 sq km area at Gara mandal, 15 km from Srikakulam. For the Bhavanapadu project, it proposes to use some 12 million litres of water a day from the Vamsadhara river, 35 km away. Farmers in its catchment areas say this will affect their standing crop.
Human Rights Forum state secretary K.V. Jagannadha Rao criticises the EIA report as misleading. “Increasing rates of coastal erosion are a given in beach sand mining. The entire process of mining and refilling, despite all the glib assurances by the project proponents, will not just result in beach erosion but also saline water infiltrating easily into groundwater storage aquifers. Thousands of farmers and fishermen will be hit adversely,” he says.
The Trimex Group is owned by Koneru Prasad, who is currently under the CBI scanner in the Emaar Properties scam. He is said to have floated Stylish Homes Real Estate Pvt Ltd, which sold villas on behalf of Emaar Group and collected crores in benami transactions. The CBI has quizzed him twice on the Emaar scam as well as on the Trimex company receiving undue favours from the state government.
Former energy secretary E.A.S. Sarma sees a scam in the very fact that Trimex was given this lease without any competitive bid. “Coastal lands are in the nature of public lands available to the coastal communities as commons,” he says. “Sand mining is prohibited activity in Coastal Regulatory Zone areas as per both the 1991 and 2011 notifications of the Supreme Court,” he says. But greedy corporates can always find their way around legalities, and Trimex is no different.
