Eager officials & meagre fines: How quarries tunnel away public resources and revenue

Quarries may come up anywhere in Kerala, either in a thickly populated area or deep inside the forest, with generous support from politicians and government officials.

Until recently, 11 quarries disturbed the serenity of the Peechi reserve forest in central Kerala. The mafia that dared to dig up the forest had even managed to forge a title deed on the encroached land. Local revenue department officers later granted an encumbrance certificate and regularised the documents by collecting land tax.

The High Court ordered the closure of the illegal quarries following people's protest. It also resulted in the suspension of the local village officer.

Such violations are rampant across Kerala. What is worrying is the rare bonhomie of rival political parties, such as Congress and the CPM, to protect the interests of the quarry mafia.

At Nirannapara IHDC Colony, local leaders of Congress and CPM forced the residents to give an undertaking that they would never create problems for a quarry and a crusher unit in the area. The political patronage comes handy for quarries that have not received a licence from the local self-government.

A sub-collector ordered the closure of an illegal quarry at Mulloorkkara near Vadakkancheri in Thrissur district after it functioned with an explosives license obtained to deepen a well. The quarry belonged to a local leader of the ruling CPM. Within no time, the locked-up quarry was back in business. More than a year later, residents aver that the blasting of rocks in the quarry is an everyday affair.

A prerequisite for granting permission to open a quarry is that it should keep a minimum distance from houses and other buildings. In Kozhikode's Kodiyathur panchayat, however, a quarry owner managed to obtain a license dangerously close to a government-run kindergarten at Mysoreppatta. To be doubly sure, he bought the kindergarten located on government land and converted it into his office.

He simply offered to relocate the kindergarten to another area and the local body representatives were all ears to his idea.

Quarrying makes people ill, forever

Quarrying causes umpteen miseries to people. 

Ambika is forever dependent on an oxygen cylinder that is taller than the frail woman. “I can hardly eat or talk. I can't even walk around my house without attaching the oxygen tube to my nose,” said the 56-year-old resident of Mukkoonnimala near Pallichal in Thiruvananthapuram district.

She has been diagnosed with silicosis for nine years. The disease is caused by fine particles of granite dust released from the quarries and stone crushers. She has been dependent on an oxygen cylinder for two years. She needs medicines worth Rs 10,000 every month. A shot to boost immunity costs Rs 5,000. The oxygen cylinder and paraphernalia contribute to a monthly electricity bill of Rs 7,000. Her family borrowed Rs 56,000 to set up an electrical oxygen unit at home.

Ambika is not the only sick person in the area. The road in front of her house used to be packed with lorries carrying mined granite and gravel from the quarries. The people were so fed up by the dust raised by the endless convoy that they blocked the lorries on the road, prompting the quarry operators to look for alternative routes.

A vengeful mafia

The quarry mafia comes up with tested methods to deal with popular protest. Fousil Fajid, an auto-rickshaw driver from Melmuri near Oorakam in Malappuram district, was cornered after he lodged a complaint against the quarries. He has been away from home for 75 days and his wife and two small children are now taken care of by the neighbours.

The first attack came in the form of a police case that he had smuggled ganja in his auto-rickshaw. The local police promptly acted on their informants' tips and took Fajid into custody. A subsequent investigation by a superintendent of police revealed that Fajid had been framed. He ordered to file a case against three persons including the quarry operator.

Fajid was later accused of manhandling a Dalit employee of the quarry. Faced with a serious charge, he had no option but to leave his family and go elsewhere. He said that he had reasons to worry for his safety as many of the local cops were hands in glove with the quarry operator.

Blasting the coffers

The government is losing huge revenue due to the frequent policy changes, which were drafted to help quarry operators.

In March 2018, the mining and geology director instructed those who carry out unauthorised mining should be fined an amount equivalent to the market price of the minerals. The letter to the district-level geologists said that the order was a follow-up of a Supreme Court ruling and an order of the central forest and environment ministry.

The Supreme Court order was dated August 2, 2017. The central government order came on January 5, 2018. The state geology department chief took three more months to act on it, giving ample time for illegal quarry operators to save their skins by paying meagre fines.

The latest order has not been implemented in any of the districts so far. Despite the order, the department imposes a lesser fine which is only three times of royalty and seigniorage, the fee mining owners have to pay the government. The seigniorage for granite mining in Kerala stands at Rs 50 per tonne.

If unauthorised mining is spotted in private land, the fine would be Rs 72, as against the Rs 24 royalty for authorised mining. If the violation happened in government land, the fine will be Rs 150.

This means any unauthorised quarry operator can get away with a fine of just Rs 222 per tonne, thanks to an amendment to the Kerala Minor Mineral Concession Rules on June 22, 2017. The state government is foregoing a large stream of revenue by ignoring the Supreme Court order.

Bottomless pit

The Comptroller and Auditor General report of 2017 says that the consolidated royalty payment system is the cause of large-scale corruption in mining. This method fixes the fees due to the government by the area of the quarry, not the quantity produced from it. Quarries with an area up to 1 hectare are governed by this system.

Such quarry operators can mine to their heart's content once they have made the one-time payment. There is a limit on the number of passes but there is no cap on the minerals that can be mined.

When unscrupulous elements are let to exploit nature without a thought, the people become sitting ducks, as revealed by recent catastrophes in Kavalappara in Malappuram district and Puthumala in Wayanad district. Unauthorised mining and abandoned quarries cause untold misery to nature and the people.

(Reporting by G Vinod, K Jayaprakash Babu, S V Rajesh, A S Ullas, K P Safeena, Jithin Jose and S P Sarath; compiled by Nidheesh Chandran)

Editor's note: This is the third part of a series on illegal mining in Kerala, which originally appeared in Malayala Manorama.

Part 1: Kerala government's answer to landslides: Get more quarries

Part 2: In Kerala, an illegal quarry is an object of desire everyone is vying for