Illegal sand mining in India
Rural crime in different contexts
For many of us studying rural crime, thefts from farms, interpersonal violence in rural, regional and remote areas of the world, the scourge of alcohol and drugs in rural communities are no doubt the issues which spring most immediately to mind when thinking of particular examples of rural crime.
And because of the heavy concentration of scholarly literature which emanates from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia most particularly – with localised studies and examples from those countries – we often neglect to consider the real and ongoing impacts of other forms of offending which impact rural communities in different international contexts.
For example, how many of us would be aware of the incidence, extent and impact of illegal sand mining in India?
Illegal sand mining in India
Economic growth in India is supporting a growing construction boom worth an estimated $120 billion Australian dollars (£64 billion pounds sterling; $82 billion USD). And this is having an enormous environmental impact, contributed to by the illegal mining of sand which is proving crucial to the construction sector.
With an insufficient quantity of sand available, supply and demand economics has led to sand being illegally extracted. Referred to as ‘India’s gold’, this illegality is the work of organised criminals dubbed the ‘sand mafia’. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Foreign Correspondent program produced an insight into this problem.
“India’s sand mining problem is so prevalent that it has developed into a black market that continues to exploit millions of tons of this commodity annually, in an open loot of the riverbeds, canals and beaches sand is being drained by illegal means.”
The sand is extracted from beaches, dunes and river beds for production of concrete, amongst various uses, but leads to significant erosion. In addition to the devastating environmental consequences, prevalent too is the corruption of public officials and underpayment or non-payment of royalties to government for mineral extraction.
Lack of data, though, masks the real extent of illegal sand mining in India.
This is a matter with grave consequences for rural communities. As rural crime scholars and practitioners, we need to expand our horizons and take greater interest in issues such as this.
Want to know more?
A series of articles from the Economic Times can be found here.
There is also some academic scholarship available as well: for ex ample, from Rege (2015), Rege and Lavorgna (2016) and Data and Bagchi (2018).
White (2013) offers a useful and interesting perspective on resource extraction from an environmental justice perspective.
