A Few Rivers Dredged Dry

Starting from Saharanpur and Bijnor where the main Himalayan rivers enter the state and spread across Gau­tam Buddh Nagar, Agra, Allahabad, Kaushambi, Son­bha­dra districts, illegal sand mining is rampant in Uttar Pradesh. The worst loot occurs in the river basins of the Yamuna, Hindon, Betwa, Ken, Chambal and Sone. The sand from these rivers is of high quality and ideal for construction purposes. The boom in infrastructure, real estate and industrial projects has fuelled demand and encouraged black marketing.

Ashish Mittal, a political activist working against the sand mafia in Allahabad and Kaushambi, says, “The dirt of sand mining can’t stick to any one party. Many big faces of regional and national parties are in the business directly or indirectly.” Which is why the opposition in the state has not been very vocal in its protest.

No one cares that sand mining takes a toll on the ecology of the rivers, threatening their existence as well as of communities living off it. The Nishads, comprising boatmen, are one such community. They are now forced to work as bonded labour. After the implementation of the Zami­ndari Act, 1950, members of the community were allotted riverside land on temporary basis. Today, the sand mafia controls these allotments. Outlook got a measure of the profits involved from someone in the business. “For a Rs 400 permit for a truck of sand,” he said, “we pay about Rs 1,600 as bribe to government officials. This one truck is then sold for Rs 7,000-12,000. Even if we include loading charges paid to labour, we still make more than Rs 5,000 per truck.” As per a rough estimate, some 1,000 trucks of sand are sold in Allahabad daily.