NGT seeks report from Kollam administration on sand mining after teenage girl's video

The National Green Tribunal on Wednesday sought a report from the Kollam district administration after taking note of a news report about a 17-year-old girl's viral video on environmental impact of sand mining activity in her coastal village of Alappad in Kerala.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel asked the Kollam District Magistrate to furnish a report within a month.

The matter will now be heard on March 29.

The tribunal's direction came after taking suo motu (on its own) cognizance of an Indian Express news report titled "17-year-old's video gets Kerala talking of impact of sand mining".

The news report mentioned about Kavya S, a class 12 student, who made the video about the environmental impact of the decades-long black sand mining activity in her village Alappad.

"The video, in which she relays a village's strong fears about falling off the map due to extensive dredging and excavation works by two public-sector firms, has become a huge talking point on television news channels, radio stations, and social media networks.

"Her video and word of the campaign have been amplified by Malayalam cinema's young actors like Prithviraj Sukumaran and Tovino Thomas," the news report said.

The report said that Alappad and several villages on the coasts of Kollam and Alappuzha in southern Kerala are rich repositories of black sand that contains important minerals like monazite, ilmenite, rutile and zircon.

"Sand mining activities began in Alappad in the mid-60s, mainly under the auspices of the Centre's Indian Rare Earths Limited and the state-owned Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited," it said.