FREE SAND POLICY OF AP GOVERNMENT – GROUND REALITIES

FREE SAND POLICY OF AP GOVERNMENT – GROUND REALITIES

Sand policy of AP:

In 2016 TDP Government brought out a very innovative free sand policy with an objective to promote housing, wage employment to local people, to encourage sand transport through tractors. The outline of policy is as under:

• Free sand quarries in identified and approved sites have to be under control of mandal steering committee consisting of Tahsildar, Sub Inspector of Police and Mandal Development Officer.

• The boundaries of excavation site shall be fixed and flagged with clear markings and revenue staff are to present to oversee the operations.  

• Tahsildhar is authorized to utilize NREGS funds to create temporary road in river till regular road point and collect Rs.30/tractor and Rs.60/Lorry to recover the cost of the road and maintenance of road including watering at regular intervals.

• The sand permit is to be prominently displayed in Tahsildhar office, Panchayat office for public to know about the facility and access the same.

• Any local SHG groups, labour societies shall be given preference in manual excavation and loading into tractors. The rates are fixed as Rs100/cubic meter (Rs.300/tractor) if manual operations and Rs. 50/cubic meter (Rs150/tractor) if proclaimers are engaged. A proper receipt with amount is to be issued.

• If any local villager wants sand for his own house purpose and willing to use his own bullock cart or tractor with his own labour, MRO is supposed to issue trip slip to him by collecting only toll charges.

• MRO is expected to monitor the quantity excavated and transported on daily basis and share the details with public on demand and maintain the account for quantity remaining to be lifted.

• Overloading, over speed, playing load speakers and any other issues related to public safety are to be assured.

• Irrigation, river conservation, Agriculture, revenue, police departments have to be taken into confidence by district sand committee under coordination of mining department.

• Other than free sand, the other method to lift sand under this policy is de-casting of sand from private patta lands which have formed sand layers due to flooding or dust storms. AD, Agriculture have to certify that after de-casting to a prescribed depth, the virgin soils will resurface and lands with become suitable for agriculture.  

Free sand site at Krishna River, Kollipara reach- Real time experiences:

• Vide Proc. No. 1218/Sand/2016 dated 00.10.2018 permission was given for free sand in an extent of 1.651 hectares to a depth of 1-meter excavation. It amounts to 16519 cubic meters (5500 tractor loads @ 3 cmt).
• The operations were started on 07.10.2018 with around 150 tractor loads for day and increased to 500 for day.

• Local villagers felt the inconvenience and came in touch with me requesting for support and help. Along with local villagers joint inspection was made to site and it was observed that the boundaries are erased and excavation extended to about 20 acres instead of 4 acres approved site, river course is totally abused, overloading and over speed of tractors, the temporary road in river laid by farmers to reach their farms is used and damaged, instead Rs.300/- the charges actually are to the tune of 500 to 600/ tractor load, the entire operations moved to local unofficial political system from local Government.

• As first step, a petition was made to Tahsildhar, who refused to share the permission copy and tried to pacify the complainants and even went to the extent of sharing the details of complaint and other information to the unofficial political system who is controlling the operations.

• Next petition was given to road transport officer with details of overloading showing with pictures, tried sensitizing him by narrating an accident happened six months back in another village in which overload sand tractor hit a cyclist resulted in spot death. They came next day to site, but hardly any action is initiated and over loading continued.

• As there are no improvements and the excavations are happening with more vigor with complaints, revenue divisional officer was approached and he promised to do needful. We waited for about a week, but nothing significant happened.       

• We reached District collector through cell contact and explained him the issue in brief. He requested us to give petition on grievances day (every Monday). A detailed petition capturing every point is made and submitted to Collector office on 29.10.2018.

• Enough lobbying using the analytical skills is done to ensure that the petition reach AD, Mines for further action.  Mines department was taken into confidence (purely on case facts) and ensured that the mines team visit the site on 02.11.2018 and issued temporary closing orders.

• Till this juncture we kept low profile and ensured that there is no information leak to political bosses.

• Local politicians finally came to know who is the catalyst in the operation and tried influencing through political system. As the sequence of operations were already presented as and when the moves were made through SMS, they had no option than remaining silent.

• As the sand loaders are mainly from SC community, the local politicians colored it as a move against them and hit on their livelihoods and on 05.11.2018 representation to reopen the mine is made to collector. Collector ordered AD, Mines and RDO to go for joint inspection and report back with factual situation.

AD, Mines and RDO inspection on 08.11.2018   

Farmers are briefed how to conduct themselves during the visit and they are properly trained to avoid confrontations and provocations which are very common in these types of operations to ensure diversion of the topic.

• Farmers told the team that they are not against government or its policies and further told that they welcome free sand policy.

• Coupe of them who are properly briefed explained free sand policy in detail to the inspection team.

• Farmers unanimously told that this existing mine shall not be entertained as the permitted quantity or much more was already excavated.

• They also stated that the claim of some sections that there is no work for people and sand mining is helping them with wage employment is false and assured that enough work with decent wages is assured for anyone in the village. In fact, Kollipara is very rich agricultural village with multi cropping throughout the year and if there are no works here, 95 % state will be under severe drought situation.  

• They also heard the version from other side and informed that they already excavated the quantity allotted, also crossed the boundaries and told them that if they try to start operations, they will be in trouble including police action and penalties.

• It was also told to them that the farmers filed suit in high court seeking stay and department is instructed to submit factual situation, hence taking photos, measurements etc to submit report to court.

• Finally, informed farmers as well as sand lifting groups that the operations are closed till further orders and left the site.

How Kollipara is affected due to sand mining:

• Ground water which is plenty and sweet water available at 25 feet depth is drawn down to 60 to 80 feet in few areas and farmers are forced to replace 3 to 5 HP Monoblock pumps with 7.5 to 10 HP submersible pumps investing huge money, still the quality of water is poor. This is due to transformation of river beds into deep pits, as a result drop in ground water table. Even for state its huge burden of extra infrastructure in power sector.

• In summer months the hand pumps which are popular for domestic water supply are getting dried, hence replaced by jet pumps and often delivering saline water.    

• Already the areas like Kolluru, Donepudi and nearby areas which are about 40 Km distance from sea are getting saline water seriously affecting the crops. If the sand de-casting and such environmental damaging operations are allowed, similar fate is not far for Kollipara.   

• Sand mining is always an environmental threat and the present over exploitation keeping all the protection laws at bay is serious concern and it will seriously affect 80 % of farmers who depend on borewells for irrigation.

• Huge chunk of cultivable land is eroded and few farmers lost tangible asset with overnight floods. This is mainly due to change in river course and its speed, as there is no enough sand in river bed to act as buffer, the river velocity increases leading to erosion and downstream flooding. The farmers who had experience with these earlier are emotionally disturbed with present developments.

Positive impact:

• Kollipara youth came forward to organize themselves into village development committee, keeping their political affiliations at distance and with our guidance about 300 youth gathered, invited elders from all parties and discussed about the sand issue and other issues of village on a common platform. 

• The RTI group which is existing in village came for advice and suggestions and gave confidence that they can move forward with more confidence.

• Nearby villagers came to know about the efforts of us resulting in stopping illegal mining and they are planning to approach District collector with their problems.

I would like to state that if we are clear in our thoughts, have grip over the problem and concern for public issues, they can be easily resolved without much inconvenience. The clarity on the issue, road map with clear vision and strategy, action plan to address irritants have to be the integral part of action plan.

I AM SUCCESSFUL WITH THIS ISSUE. I AM SURE YOU WILL BE ....

B Guruva Reddy – 9866889246

grbonthu@gmail.com