The Nadu government has informed the Madras High Court that it has decided to recover losses to the tune of 5,832.44 crore from private beach sand mineral exporters, seize all the stocks available with them and constitute a Special Investigation Team to probe illegal mining since 2000-01.
In a counter-affidavit filed before Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, who were seized of a suo motu PIL taken up in 2015, Industries Secretary S. Krishnan sought the courts nod to seize 1.55 crore tonnes of stocks and hand them over to Indian Rare Earths Limited, a central Psu.
The counter-affidavit pointed out that the government had originally issued 64 beach sand mining licences (52 in Tirunelveli and six each in Thoothukudi and Kanniyakumari districts) to seven miners. However, following complaints of large-scale illegal mining, the government banned the mining as well as the transportation of beach sand Minerals in 2013.