TIRUNELVELI: A natural resources protection association has welcomed the state government’s decision to impose a three-month ban on the transportation of rough stone and aggregates to neighbouring states.
Tenkasi Iyarkai Vala Paathugappu Sangam president and former legislator K Raviarunan on Tuesday termed the ban as a long-awaited step towards protecting the state’s natural resources.
The Chief Minister should make the ban on inter-state transportation of minerals permanent to safeguard Tamil Nadu’s natural resources for future generations, Raviarunan demanded.
In a statement, Raviarunan thanked Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay for the decision and alleged that successive Dravidian party governments had failed to prevent the large-scale transportation of minerals to Kerala. He claimed that thousands of tonnes of mineral resources were transported daily in heavy vehicles, leading to environmental degradation and depletion of Tamil Nadu’s natural wealth. “Illegal mining and transportation had caused huge revenue losses to the state exchequer, while a few individuals amassed crores of Rupees through the illegal trade. The continuous movement of giant mineral-laden trucks had also resulted in fatal road accidents, traffic congestion and hardship to the public, including schoolchildren, ambulance services and air travellers from and to Thiruvananthapuram,” he alleged.
Raviarunan further hoped that the ban could help ensure better availability of construction materials within Tamil Nadu and eventually bring down their prices for local consumers.“Restricting mineral transport to Kerala would reduce the overexploitation of quarries and prevent the dumping of bio-medical waste, meat waste and plastic waste in Tamil Nadu through empty trucks returning from neighbouring States. Excessive quarrying had severely affected agriculture in southern districts by depleting groundwater levels,” he stated.
He also condemned Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan’s letter to CM Vijay on Tuesday, asking him to consider granting relaxation for transportation of minerals, particularly from Tirunelveli, Tenkasi and Kanniyakumari districts to Kerala.
The members of the Sangam celebrated the ban by distributing laddus and bursting firecrackers in Puliyarai village.