Many officers targeted by mafia

Ms Durga Shakti Nagpal is not the first official to be targeted by the all pervasive sand mafia. In 2012, an IPS officer, Narendra Kumar, was crushed to death by the mining mafia in Madhya Pradesh when he tried to stop a tractor carrying illegally quarried stones.

Most of the companies who are given mining permits, called reconnaissance permits, are fronts for politicians who are sleeping partners in these concerns.

Senior bureaucrat Girsh Sharma, who had served as joint district collector of Sehore in Madhya Pradesh, has been penalised for his campaign against sand mining. Mr Sharma was transferred eleven times in his 11 year career as a civil servant. Following his eleventh transfer, he moved court for relief.

Sehore is incidentally the home district of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. When Mr Sharma sent a team of officers to a sand mine leased out to Madhya Pradesh state mineral corporation on the banks of the Narmada river, they found illegal extraction of 1.9 million cubic metre of sand worth nearly ` 400 crore in current market value. Since mining lease areas are not demarcated, contractors in Badgaon and Saatdev villages had illegally extracted sand worth ` 112 crore. Sand mining lowers the riverbed causing surrounding wells to dry up and also affects the recharge of groundwater. It also increases flood risk apart from causing environmental degradation. UP, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat are leading producers of sand. The Supreme Court had made environmental clearance mandatory for all mining sites. This order came when the Supreme Court Central Empowered committee found large scale illegal mining in several districts. Sand mining is a hugely profitable industry given that India has the third largest construction business in the world.