HC orders inspection of sand mining sites

The PIL has been filed by Ram Anant Yadav and 75 residents of Mokalpur and Mustafabad villages,where the state government has sanctioned leases for sand mining.

The Dhab area is a 14-km long and around 1.5-km wide stretch between River Ganga and its own stream,created due to bifurcation of the river’s current several decades ago.

The stretch is located in Sadar tehsil of Varanasi on the Varanasi-Chandauli border. There are over a dozen villages,with a total population of roughly around 1.5 lakh.

These villages,which can be approached only through boats,remain without power supply for a large part of the year due to floods.

“With river bringing silt on one side and sand mining on the other,the villagers are left with very little agricultural land,besides problem of water stagnation and accompanying diseases. Therefore,our prayer is that the state should stop sand mining in this area,” said Senior Advocate,M D Singh ‘Shekhar’,counsel for the petitioners.

Passing the order Wednesday,a division bench of Chief Justice Dr D Y Chandrachud and Justice Dilip Gupta said: “The submission is that as a result of sand excavation the said villages are largely cut off during monsoon and that the area for agriculture is substantially reduced,resulting in severe ecological damage; it would be appropriate to direct the MoEF … to depute a team for conducting a site visit and submit a report before this court. We direct accordingly.” The court gave MoEF six weeks’ time for the exercise.