The Tamil Nadu government on Monday informed the Madras High Court that 16.04 lakh tonnes of valuable beach sand minerals (BSM) had been transported illegally by the private miners in the State between 2018 and 2022 though there has been a ban on transportation of the minerals since 2013.
Filing a reasssessment report before Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, the government said, 6.62 lakh tonnes of additional stock of BSM too was found in possession of the miners, compared to the 2018 assessment, despite a ban on mining for the last 10 years.
The report was filed during the hearing of a suo motu public interest litigation petition taken up by the court in 2015 regarding allegations of large scale illegal mining in the coastal districts of Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari, along with a batch of individual writ petitions filed by the private miners.
In the reassessment report, Natural Resources Department Secretary K. Phanindra Reddy stated that the High Court had on January 11, 2017 ordered constitution of a special team to take stock of the BSM stored in the processing plants, storage yards, bonded warehouses and other places.
Accordingly, the State government on April 7, 2017 issued a Government Order appointing Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Satyabrata Sahoo to head the team which submitted a report on April 18, 2018 stating that stocks to the tune of 1.5 crore tonnes had been stored in the three districts.
Thereafter, in 2021, there were complaints of illegal transportation of the BSM from the sealed premises and a few First Information Reports (FIRs) too came to be filed against the transporters by the police. Further, the revenue officials also seized trucks used for transportation of the minerals.
Enquiries revealed that the power supply for the closed circuit television cameras installed at some of the sealed premises had been snapped by miscreants. When the officials installed solar-powered CCTV cameras, the entire equipment along with the solar panels were damaged to facilitate illegal transportation.
Hence, the State government on September 20, 2021 directed the Collectors of the three districts to conduct a reassessment of the minerals, stored in all the sealed premises, by constituting multiple teams, comprising officials from the revenue, survey, police and geology and mining departments.
Officials from the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research in Hyderabad too were included in the teams. The reassessment of processed minerals, semi processed minerals and other stocks were carried out using Total Station and Differential Global Positioning System.
Though Mr. Sahoo’s 2018 report had assessed the stocks to be 1.5 crore tonnes, the reassessment found that only 1.33 crore tonnes of that stock was available leading to a shortfall of 16.04 lakh tonnes. Further, an additional stock of 6.62 lakh tonnes was found in the possession of the private miners.
The reassessment also revealed alarming level of monazite, a radioactive mineral and a prescribed substance under the Atomic Energy Act, in the additional stocks. Exactly 6,448.362 tonnes of monazite had been found in just 4.83 lakh tonnes of the additional semi processed BSM, Mr. Reddy said.
Stating that the Collectors had now requested the police department to keep a 24X7 vigil on the sealed premises through regular patrolling, the Secretary sought the permission of the court to hand over the entire quantum of processed and semi processed minerals to Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL).
The government contended it would only be advisable to hand over the minerals to the central public sector undertaking to protect the interest of the State government as well as to safeguard national interest since private players in the country had been prohibited from handling monazite.
“The value realised from the handover of the stocks (to IREL) will be deposited in the government account and further action in this regard will be taken based on the outcome of the present suo motu petition,” the Secretary stated in the reassessment report filed through senior counsel Arvind P. Datar.
After taking the report on file, the first Division Bench asked amicus curiae V. Suresh, Senior Counsel Srinath Sridevan representing V.V. Minerals and others to respond to it within two weeks. They also directed the High Court Registry to list the case on January 18, 2024 for further hearing.
