Sand dredging near Vaitarna bridge banned

The petitioners pointed to the state government’s policy on sand dredging introduced in October last year,which holds that sand extraction using suction pumps is not allowed except in cases where the navigation channel needs to be cleared or where manual dredging is not possible.

The petition also took note of a recent incident where a bridge in Vaitarna was eroded,which nearly led to a train accident. Claiming that illegal sand mining close to the bridge was responsible for the erosion,the petition said “such activities must be stopped in order to avoid incidents of this sort”.

Lawyer for the petitioner,A S Khandeparkar,said,“The reason why suction pumps need to be banned is that they do not differentiate between sand and the flora and fauna,and are therefore very harmful to the marine ecology.” The next hearing in the case is on August 30.