The Tamil Nadu government on Monday informed the Madras High Court that 16.04 lakh tonnes of valuable beach sand minerals (BSM) had been transported illegally by the private miners in the State between 2018 and 2022 though there has been a ban on transportation of the minerals since 2013.
Filing a reasssessment report before Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, the government said, 6.62 lakh tonnes of additional stock of BSM too was found in possession of the miners, compared to the 2018 assessment, despite a ban on mining for the last 10 years.
The report was filed during the hearing of a suo motu public interest litigation petition taken up by the court in 2015 regarding allegations of large scale illegal mining in the coastal districts of Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari, along with a batch of individual writ petitions filed by the private miners.
