Rethinking housing needs for sustainable sand mining

The push for infrastructure projects across Assam has raised the demand for sand manifold. Indiscriminate sand mining carried out in different rivers in the state to cater to the demand has given rise to serious ecological problems. If the problem is not addressed urgently, several rivers in the state will die soon once the sand layers of these rivers are gone completely due to indiscriminate mining. Water flow in a river is adversely affected when it does not have a sand layer to retain water and the riverbed gets exposed. Sadly, the problem has not received due attention from the Environment and Forest Department, which has given rise to allegations of a section of corrupt officials being in hand with erring contractors behind such illegal and indiscriminate sand mining. Commercial sand mining from a river is a permitted activity to facilitate infrastructure growth, but strings are attached to it to make it environmentally sustainable. When a river dies, it has a cascading impact on life and livelihoods dependent on it for ages. The river replenishes wetlands connected to it, from which it also gets its source population of fish and other aquatic biodiversity. Conservation of the ecology of a river, therefore, is crucial for the livelihoods of fisherfolk, irrigating farmlands along the riverbanks. Loss of livelihoods in the farm sector triggers the migration of members of farm households to urban areas in search of livelihoods, which makes cities and towns unsustainable when the migrant population increases beyond their absorbing capacities. Incidents of drowning in rivers after rampant sandmining left deep pits on the riverbeds in different parts of the state have set the alarm bell ringing but fell on the deaf ears of the monitoring officials. The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Climate Change had to issue a guideline in 2020 for the enforcement and monitoring of adherence to the Sustainable Sand Management Guideline issued by the ministry earlier in 2016. The issuance of the guideline on enforcement and monitoring speaks volumes about the failure of the States to ensure regulation of sand mining activities as laid down in 2016. The National Green Tribunal, in an order in 2018, observed that an effective institutional monitoring mechanism for sand mining is not only required at the stage when environmental clearance is granted but also in subsequent stages. The NGT also observed that guidelines for sustainable mining ought to be scrupulously followed, but on the ground level, it was found that illegal sand mining was continuing. It insisted that the monitoring mechanism followed by state boards, state-level environmental impact assessment authorities, and district-level environmental impact assessment authorities had utterly failed, and the monitoring mechanism was required to be revised. It is ironic that indiscriminate and illegal mining is continuing in the state even though more than four years have elapsed since the ministry issued the enforcement and monitoring guidelines. The Sand Mining Framework issued by the Ministry of Mines in March 2018 emphasises that monitoring is crucial to the entire process chain of sand mining. The environmental clearance of a certain sand quarry indicates the quantity of material that can be mined in a year. If this quantity is not measured and much more sand is mined out, then the entire regulatory process of granting environmental clearance becomes infructuous. The use of excavators and heavy machinery in sand extraction is prohibited, yet scenes of excavators or suction pumps illegally mining sand from rivers are quite common. The seizure of excavators or suction pumps failing deters illegal sand mining in the state, which says a lot about the gaps in the enforcement and monitoring mechanisms. Ecological concern over illegal and indiscriminate sand mining also puts the spotlight on the role other key stakeholders, like the general public, can play to ensure that it remains sustainable. Apart from infrastructure projects like the construction of roads, bridges, railway lines, and stations, airports, hospitals, and educational institutions, the demand for sand has also increased with the growing demand for modern, luxurious housing. Growing demand for building space pushes the demand for sand. It is time we also ask ourselves how much space we need for comfortable living. Do our residential buildings have extra rooms and space made of concrete with such low utility that our lives would be no less comfortable without them? Many people from different parts of the state have bought apartments in which they do not live or give them away on rent and use them only when they visit the city for work or leisure. Rethinking our housing needs and design can significantly reduce the demand for sand in the housing sector and contribute towards sustainable sand mining. Lessons must be learned from how indiscriminate sand mining fuelled by demand for high-quality sand for building multi-storeyed apartments, residential houses, and commercial spaces has ruined the River Kulsi and the habitat of endangered River Dolphins.