KL-ALAPPAD-MINING

Abandoned homes, deserted

school, heaps of sand, a lone temple and dried up mangroves.

These are the remnants of a once green Ponmana village

under the coastal Alappad panchayat in Kollam district in

southern Kerala where locals are up in arms against beach sand

mining, blaming it for sea erosion eating up their lands.

They claim hamlet after hamlet was 'disappearing' from

the map due to mining activities by the Indian Rare Earth

(IRE), a central Public Sector Undertaking, and state

government-owned Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited (KMML).

Seeking to save their remaining villages, the people of

Alappad and nearby hamlets under the banner of Anti-mining

People's Protest Council have been on a relay-hunger strike

at Vellanathuruthu near here for the past over two months

demanding a complete halt to the mining activities.

However, an official of the IRE, when contacted, said

the company was following all mining norms.

The two firms together have been engaged in mineral sand

mining along the beach off the Kollam coast since the 1960s.

This PTI correspondent saw deserted houses, roads and

dried up mangroves in Ponmana village with the protesters

claiming this was the scene in several other hamlets too.

In Ponmana, only two families remain, a resident said.

According to the protesters, a lithographic map decades

ago had shown the area of Alappad panchayat as 89.5 square

kilometre and it has now shrunk to a measly 7.6 square km due

to sea erosion caused by the mining.

Alappad is a narrow stretch between Trivandrum-Shoranur

(TS) Canal and the Arabian Sea that was commissioned between

the 18th and 19th century.

Agitators allege that if this strip of land erodes any

further, the backwaters would irreversibly merge with the sea

and turn the river waters saline.

This in turn would damage paddy fields of upper

Kuttanad, which is below the sea level and known as the rice

bowl of Kerala.

"Since ours being a public sector company with strategic

importance, there are several monitoring agencies and both the

state and the central governments are aware about processes

followed by us," the IRE official, who did not want to be

named, said.

Around 60 industries of strategic importance, including

the Travancore Titanium Products and the KMML, were making use

of their services, he added.

Kollam District collector Dr S Karthikeyan said the

government was fully aware of the situation. "We will study

whether the apprehensions are correct. Then we will take a

look at sustainable mining limit."

The district administration had conducted multiple

hearings and the government had already given certain

suggestions like concentrating on inland mining and reducing

sea mining, he said.

"In case of sea mining, they should make groynes. The

company is also changing their plans accordingly. They are

going to do deep mining," he added.

A groyne is a rigid hydraulic structure built from an

ocean shore or from a bank that interrupts water flow and

limits the movement of sediment.

K S Sreekumar, a member of the protest council, said

nearby villages including Onattukara, Upper Kuttanad and

Arattupuzha in Alappuzha district were next in line.

"The agitation is not only for ourselves," he said.

Prasanth (38) left his job in the UAE and returned to his

village years ago after the company assured him a job in

exchange for land that it could mine.

"The job we got was under a contract that expired after

two years. Most villagers have left the area with whatever

they got as compensation from the company," he said.

Rohini, an interior designer who is an active member of

the protest council, said the residents don't want to leave

the place where they grew up.

"The government has assured us a compensation Rs 10 lakh

if we give our land for mining. But we cannot leave as this

the place we grew up. This is where our culture is, where our

job is. We want our children to grow up here.... We want the

mining to stop completely," she said.

Sreekumar said if the mining continued, salt water will

enter the Pallickal and Achankovil rivers towards the east and

ultimately the paddy fields of central Travancore.

"We are trying our level best to project our issue above

all other brouhaha, including the one over Sabarimala... We

have a larger issue here. We are facing eviction from the land

where we spent have spent our lives", he said.

People from various walks of life were participating in

the agitation, he said adding no political party had so far

pledged support to their cause.

Besides the protest, a social media campaign was also on

against mining in the area.

However, a local resident, speaking on condition of

anonymity, alleged the campaign was being promoted by private

players who wanted to end the government monopoly over mining

in the area and take over the task themselves.

Freshwater ecology expert Dr Jayalekshmy V told PTI that

the 'uncontrolled' sand mining in Cheriyazheekkal-Alappad area

was affecting the ecological stability of Ashtamudi Lake and

other associated freshwater fluvial ecosystems.

"Non-sustainable extraction of beach sand has led to the

destruction of sand banks and widening of the Pallickal river

mouth and during summer when the water content is low, it will

lead to the influx of marine water into the river," she said.

This "unusual intrusion" of marine water would alter the

natural niches of aquatic organisms, leading to ecological

stress related with biological activities like exchange of

respiratory gases, fertility and survival of young ones.