CHENNAI: The partially dry Cholavaram reservoir continues to be ravaged by sand smugglers, who brazenly cart away truckloads of earth round the clock and ferry it to stockyards.TOI tracked down the sand mafia on a rampage at the lake on Wednesday morning.The Cholavaram reservoir is one of the key waterbodies that supply drinking water to Chennai. Around 10am, more than 17 trucks and three earthmovers were excavating the dry bed and the fringes on the west end of the 2,200-acre reservoir.Temporary pathways have been created for heavy-vehicle movement. Residents said trucks and earthmovers enter through a pathway leading to the reservoir every day. The trucks travel along the Devaneri Karanodai Road and head towards GNT Road, carrying the excavated sand. More than 400 tonnes of sand are illegally quarried and taken away at a time.After Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched raids in Sept 2023, legal river sand operations faced disruption. This led to a shutdown across state-sanctioned quarries by Nov 2023 as private contractors vacated approved sites.S Yuvaraj, president of Tamil Nadu State Sand Lorry Owners’ Federation, said red sand is usually taken to stockyards in Red Hills and from there to construction sites.“For the past two-and-a-half years, there has been no legal sand quarrying anywhere in the state. People have been digging up mud from metro rail construction sites in Mylapore, Royapuram and Marina, and selling it as sand. Similarly, white M sand, manufactured from Tiruvannamalai, and sand smuggled from Andhra Pradesh via Tada were also sold,” he said.“To curb illegal mining and address sand shortage, the state govt launched plans to reopen select legal river sand quarries under direct online govt operation. They use satellite mapping and GIS-driven monitoring to prevent private contractors from over-mining beyond approved boundaries. But this is yet to start,” he said.Unscientific mining can affect the stability of the nearly 160-year-old reservoir, which has a capacity of 1,081 mcft (million cubic feet), a senior WRD official said. “We have taken up such issues multiple times with the district administration. But no action has been initiated. If a raid is conducted today, the illegal miners are back tomorrow,” a villager said.A mining official from Tiruvallur district said that a week ago, officials seized six lorries for illegal sand mining in Cholavaram. “On Tuesday night, a raid was conducted by police and revenue officials,” he said. “Sometimes, collectors give permission to excavate the earth. This is not permitted,” the official added.T K Prabhu, minister for natural resources, said officials recently seized approximately 600 units of beach sand and Andhra sand stored at an illegal stockyard in Red Hills in Tiruvallur district. “We are up against a powerful lobby which will do anything for money. We will take all steps to curb this,” he said.
