Trichy | Sept 06, 2017: A team appointed by the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court inspected five sand quarries in the district on Wednesday. Sources said that the team was concerned with the quarrying operation in the rivers as there was widespread violation in terms of the mining area and depth, roads constructed inside the rivers to connect the quarries and few other things.

The team comprising advocates R Alagumani, B Saravanan, and Ravinchandran, head of the department of plant science and environment, Manonmaniam Sundranar University, visited five quarries - in Kariyamanickam, Kiliyanallur, Thiruvasi, Kondaiyampettai, and Viragalur - in the Cauvery and Kollidam rivers on Wednesday.

The team inspected if the quarries were functioning in compliance with the guidelines laid down for the sand mining in order to protect the environment.

A source said that the quarry operations at the sites were clearly exploiting the natural resource which could otherwise have been available here for the next ten years. The team took note of the violations and observed that those who owned the quarry did not even properly maintain the basic information pillars erected at the sites.

At the inspection held on Wednesday, the team assigned some of the staff to travel by a coracle in the river to identify the pits left open in the rivers after sand mining. The team used drone cameras to record the extent of quarry operations.

The high court appointed team kicked started the inspection on September 1 and have completed their inspectiong in quarries in Karur. The team has few more quarries to visit in Trichy and Thanjavur. As the court has asked them to file the report by September 12, the source said that the team would expedite the process to complete the inspection within two days.

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)