Reining in rampant sand-mining

It is common knowledge that unregulated and illegal extraction of sand from the country's rivers have been continuing unabated causing incalculable damage to the watercourses, their ecosystems and the environment. This has been going on despite the existence of a law,'Quarry and Soil Management Act', enacted in 2010 to control sand-mining illegally. Ostensibly, the brazen and rampant sand-grabbing backed by powerful quarters flouting all norms and the existing Act, prompted the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) or parliament, recently to pass the 'Quarry (Balumahal) and Soil Management (Amendment) Bill, 2023'. Especially, the amended law aims to stop destruction of croplands and their topsoil from sand lifters. As it was the case with the original Act of 2010, its amended version, no doubt, has also been enacted with the best of intentions to stop the evil practice of deliberate depredation of the country's river system. But if past experience is to go by, a law in itself cannot address a problem, unless it is implemented in its true spirit by the executive arm of the state.

In this connection, what a very recent report carried by the media said quoting the Chairman of the National River Conservation Commission (NCC) on sand-lifting from the Meghna river is simply mind-boggling. It said that a person extracted 6.68 billion cft (cubic feet) of sand worth Tk60 billion from the said river and that the illegal act was legitimised, thanks to the quarters with enormous political clout backing him, in exchange for, what the NCC chairman termed, a royalty amounting to Tk 2.67 billion. Needless to say, the colossal amount of sand being thus looted is being used to fill in some lowland elsewhere, again to the detriment of the environment of the place. Admittedly, sand-mining that reportedly happens in 60 to 70 per cent of the cases illegally, is the main driver of the construction boom the nation has been witnessing over the past decades. The unplanned construction of residential quarters, office complexes, shopping malls - you name it, has been taking place to satiate the greed of the construction industry. But wittingly or unwittingly, these activities are causing damage to the existing physical structures like bridges, roads, schools, agricultural lands as well as the river embankments and the adjoining groundwater reserves. In the process, the sand lifters are also creating holes in the riverbeds thereby accelerating the pace of erosion of the rivers concerned.

But this is all about the small picture. Experts are of the view that unrestrained sand-mining is altering the pattern of riverbeds and coastal areas and causing Bangladesh's floodplains to sink deeper, worsening the conditions for flooding further. On this score, what the Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), which has been monitoring erosion caused by the country's three major rivers-the Padma, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna-recorded in its 2019 report is alarming. It said 725 hectares and 1,240 hectares of lands respectively were devoured by Brahmaputra and Padma. Next year (2020), the picture was even worse. For about 1,120 and 1,265 hectares were lost to the rain-swollen Brahmaputra and Padmain that year.So, it is not hard to understand why these three rivers, which are also the main target of the sand-miners, are getting hungrier by the day.

So, to rein in the sand-lifters now laying the country's river system to waste, the option of a temporary ban on sand-mining may be given serious consideration. But most importantly, the stress should be on strict enforcement of the existing law on sand extraction.