Flying squads to stop beach sand mining

Chennai: Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Thursday announced the formation of a special flying squad comprising officials from several departments to prevent beach sand mining.

He was replying to a demand made by leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin in the Assembly who wanted to know the action taken on stopping beach sand mining.
Palaniswami said although mining of beach sand was banned by the government after a Madras high court order, a submission was made in the court that mining was being done without permission.

The Chief Minister said to fully prevent beach sand mining as per court order, government had directed authorities to form a special flying squad of officials.
Officials from several departments, including police, in the southern districts of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Kanyakumari and deputy district collectors form part of the squad, he said. The state also has requested the Centre to give a report on beach sand deposits in coastal districts through satellite monitoring by Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Application and Geo Informatics (BISAGI), he recalled.

A special team led by senior bureaucrat Gagandeep Singh Bedi was constituted in 2013 to go into the matter, he said. The panel’s report was submitted in the high court and a case related to it would come up on September 4 this year, he said.

When Stalin asked about late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa’s announcement previously that the government would come up with a policy decision on mining, Palaniswami said it would be done when matters pending in the court attained finality.

When Stalin asked about the office seal of Central Institute of Classical Tamil featuring only English and Hindi letters, leader of the House K A Sengottaiyan said Tamil too featured in it. Law minister C Ve Shanmugam referring to Stalin opposing an entrance test on the lines of Neet for recruitment to lower judiciary assured that the state government would take all steps to protect state’s autonomy in the matter.

Stalin also citied the soaring price of tomatoes which is selling at Rs. 100 per kg and asked the government to procure the vegetable and sell it through cooperative markets. Cooperative minister Sellur K. Raju, replying to Stalin’s demand that Rs 100 crore had been allocated by the state government to face such situation of rise in food commodity prices and the government would procure tomatoes from Maharashtra if the prices did not come down.