Plea to ban quarrying on Cauvery rejected

A petition filed by Palanisamy of Gunaseelam, Trichy district came up for hearing before a Division Bench of Justices PN Prakash and B Pugalendi. The petitioner stated that among 2,000 families residing at Gunaseelam, over 900 families had been relying on the Cauvery to earn their livelihoods by performing agriculture, the key occupation in the region over the last thirty years.

With Cauvery being the key source of river water, the farmers had been engaged in agriculture and growing a single crop over the years. However, the government in the last seven years developed quarries at places along the riverbed from Musiri to Amoor, from where enormous quantities of sand were lifted, affecting the fortunes of the farmers.

Moreover, such operations of sand mining also affected the major source of drinking water. But even further, one more quarry was made operational at Manjakkorai, where large quantities of sand were mined with the aid of earthmovers and lifted by hundreds of trucks. Due to such sand mining operations, required amount of water could not be channelised from the river to the farmlands. Thereby, the petitioner said, owing to indiscriminate mining of sand in the adjoining villages, nine shutters of Mukkkombu dam collapsed a year ago. Citing these factors, the sand mining at Manjakkorai would adversely affect reconstruction of the shutters in the dam. Hence, the petitioner sought the bench to impose ban on sand quarrying at Manjakkorai. After hearing, the bench dismissed the petition.