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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

‘Digging your own grave’: Illegal sand mining devastates Bihar’s rivers -Mohd Imran Khan

-TheThirdPole.net

This year, Bihar extended a seasonal ban on mining sand from its rivers. But illegal sand mining continues every day across the eastern Indian state

Deep inside the riverine belt of Koelwar in Bhojpur district of Bihar, around four to five kilometres from the main road and well out of sight, a dozen labourers are cutting and digging a portion of the Sone River in bright afternoon sunshine. Bare-chested, wielding spades and shovels, they collect sand to load onto a boat. Walk up and down either bank of this major tributary of the Ganga, and the scene replicates itself. Many more labourers wait for sunset, when the next shift will start. And that will be much bigger.

“We are working day and night to load and unload sand on big boats. During the daytime, some manual sand extraction takes place here, but the main work begins at night,” says one of the labourers. A man in his late thirties, he wipes sweat from his body with a thin cotton towel and adds: “JCB and Poclain machines come after dark, in view of the sand-mining ban.” Mechanised, large-scale extraction can only be done under the cover of night.

Since 2017, sand mining in Bihar has been banned between 1 July and 30 September. This year, it was banned from 1 June. This led to a severe shortage of a material that is essential for construction. It drove sand prices higher, leading to a boom in illegal mining.

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