The Kollam-Alappuzha coast in Kerala is made of high-density metallic sand, rich in rare earth minerals, which acts as a natural wall protecting the coast from erosion. However, regular sand mining in Kollam reduced the coast by nearly a tenth of its area in the last century. In particular, in Alappuzha district, sand mining over the last 15 years threatens the existence of Thottappally, a coastal village famous for its spillway built in 1954 that transformed the low-lying Kuttanad region (3 metres below sea level) into Kerala’s rice bowl.

The Alappuzha coast lies between the ocean and the backwaters like a thread. In several regions, the ocean and the lagoons are separated by less than 50 metres of coast. The black sand prevents the salt water from seeping into the fresh water bodies, particularly in Kuttanad.

The possibility of sand mining in Alappuzha was first talked about in the Global Investors’ Meet held in Karnataka in 2000. From 2002 to 2004, the Kerala State government, then run by the United Democratic Front (UDF), permitted private companies to mine the mineral-rich black sand from panchayat areas surrounding Thottappally. But there were widespread protests from local communities. Experts and activists warned about the environmental consequences of sand mining in ecologically sensitive Alappuzha and pointed to what happened to Chavara and Alappad in Kollam. In 2004, the agitation forced the government to stop sand mining in Alappuzha.

Now once again Kerala has a UDF government. Ironically, local communities now hope this change of guard will curb sand mining in Thottappally, which started after the village got a harbour. The harbour, construction of which started in 2010, was supposed to meet local fishing communities’ long-standing demand for a landing centre for their boats. It ended up initiating an era of sand mining that started with a perceived need for dredging to keep the harbour operational.

Suresh Kumar, a retired schoolteacher and founder member of a Thottappally-based social collective, Karimanal Khanana Virudha Ekopana Samithi (KKVES), said: “Within a year of the harbour opening [in 2013-2014], it became essential that the sand be dredged out of its entrance.”

Kerala’s Harbour Engineering Department (HED) started dredging the black sand, rich in heavy minerals such as ilmenite, monazite, rutile, zircon, and sillimanite. The public sector undertaking IREL (formerly Indian Rare Earths Ltd) undertook the dredging.

Sudhilal Thrikkunnapuzha, a ward member of Thrikkunnapuzha panchayat bordering Thottappally and State secretary of the Matsya Thozhilali Congress (a wing of the Congress party), recalled the years of exploitation of Thottappally’s coast, all in the name of “harbour maintenance”. He also explained how the breakwater built in 2015 did not make the harbour any safer for fishers. A breakwater is a large wall that is built from the coast out into the sea to protect a harbour from big waves. The one in Thottappally, Sudhilal said, was constructed parallel to the coast and is not able to protect the harbour, and the fishers who use it, from the rough sea. “A fisher died in the week after the breakwater was opened, probably towards the end of 2015. More such incidents followed. During the rough season, the boats struggle to land at the harbour. What’s the point of having this harbour?”

Local resistance

Local communities, who saw how impractical the harbour had turned out to be, started demanding renovation of both the harbour and the breakwater. But the HED chose to carry on with the dredging, and sand mining associated with harbour management continued to slowly eat away Thottappally’s coast.

It got much worse after the devastating flood of 2018, when the sudden opening of several dams raised water levels in Kuttanad. The Kerala State Disaster Management Authority ordered the Irrigation Department to excavate 2 lakh tonnes of sand from the Thottappally estuary, citing the need for a water pathway between the sea and the Kuttanad region through the Thottappally spillway. The Irrigation Department, which said it lacked the equipment to carry out the task, in 2019 allowed Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML) and IREL to carry out sand excavation/removal operations.

So now there was more sand mining to address a problem that seems to have been caused, or at least aggravated, by sand mining. N.N. Panicker, an expert in ocean engineering and environmental sustainability, has been observing Kerala’s coasts for decades and is the founder of a collective that has been working on the rejuvenation of Kuttanad and its farmlands since the 1990s. He said that mismanagement of Thottappally’s spillway was an old problem but salt-water intrusion into Kuttanad’s paddy fields was a more recent phenomenon that started with estuary mining.

Protective valve for Kuttanad

The Thottappally estuary acts like a protective valve for Kuttanad, making a pathway for the water to flow into the sea. Following the commencement of extensive sand mining after 2018, 3,000 hectares of land became uncultivable in just three years between 2020 and 2023. Experts have noted that to control floods in the Alappuzha backwaters effectively, desilting of more than 30 dams must be implemented. Targeting the Thottappally estuary alone for dredging will not help.

Bhadran Bhaskaran, a retired government employee and KKVES member, said estuary mining had not helped: “Kuttanad is the only submerged farmland in India. Despite repeated complaints by our collective, the District Collector didn’t take any action on salt-water intrusion into the paddy fields of Kuttanad, an acknowledged Ramsar site. This is in clear violation of international norms as well as the Disaster Management Act of 2005.” (A wetland is designated as a Ramsar site and put on the List of Wetlands of International Importance, also known as the Ramsar List, if it meets the criteria for such designation as laid out by the UN Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.)

“Following the commencement of extensive sand mining after 2018, 3,000 hectares (approximately 7,500 acres) of land were rendered uncultivable in just three years between 2020 and 2023.”

Bhadran added that a comparison of aerial coastal maps of Alappuzha with those from 10 years ago shows the extent of coastal erosion.

The fine grains in an estuary are critical for coastal formation and coastal stabilisation. Apart from the Thottapally estuary, there are 23 other estuaries in Alappuzha district, but no disaster-management action has been taken for any of them.

The Left Democratic Front government cited studies conducted by IIT Madras and the Swaminathan Commission to justify sand mining in the Thottappally estuary. Local resistance, which was growing, was met with intimidatory tactics. In May 2020, a large police force was deployed in Thottappally, ostensibly for COVID-19 protocol implementation. The real agenda, according to local sources, was to quell protests.

Local collective takes up the fight

In June 2021, the KKVES, newly formed but already growing in strength, started an indefinite relay strike, which eventually lasted for 1,674 days. Local communities repeatedly confronted the subcontractors who were mining in the estuary and even tracked the trucks and lorries “smuggling” the sand out of the region. According to Suresh Kumar, they were threatened by “hired goons” of Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL), a publicly listed chemicals company with a mineral processing unit based in Ernakulam that had waded into the Thottappally mess to cash in on the minerals that could be extracted from the sand.

Despite repeated RTI applications filed by activists, there was no information on who gave permission to introduce the Chinese Cutter Section Dredger Yongsheng CSD4012 for sand mining in Thottappally in 2024. It is a high-capacity machine with a 2,000-4,000 m³/hour capacity, which should not be employed in an ecologically sensitive place like an estuary mouth. Ideally, sand should be removed manually.

In July 2021, the KKVES filed an appeal in the Kerala High Court, the collective’s first legal step against sand mining. A single bench rejected the appeal citing “disaster management action”. The KKVES then approached the Kerala Lokayukta Court, only to face disappointment again. The Kerala Lokayukta Court is a body established to look into allegations of corruption against officials/government bodies and for speedy redressal of grievances of the public.

In July 2023, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court with support from the prominent lawyer Prashant Bhushan and the advocate Mathew Kuzhalnadan, a Congress politician. The KKVES was represented by the advocates Liju V. Stephen, James P. Thomas, and Sanjay Upadhyay. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change backed the petition by providing a report that stated that mining in the Thottappally estuary was against ecological norms. Once again, the court’s decision went against the KKVES.

The KKVES’ latest legal measure is a case filed in the Kerala High Court in December 2025 on the adverse impact of sand mining on Kuttanad’s paddy fields. The case was considered along with another petition, filed by an NGO called Greenroots, also based in Thottappally, which spoke of the adverse impact of sand mining on the sea turtle population hatching in the region. The High Court ordered that an expert committee be formed to evaluate the matter. Suresh Kumar and other members of the KKVES fear that if they lose this case, they will lose their last chance to save the coast.

New government rekindles hope

The fact that there is a new UDF government in the State, however, has rekindled hope for local communities. On May 29, some KKVES members met Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan in Thiruvananthapuram to discuss the matter. “The Chief Minister assured us that the State Minister for Excise would take necessary action,” Suresh Kumar said.

It seems to mark a remarkable change of mood from the way activists felt on November 29, 2025, when a group of a little over two dozen people gathered for a meeting organised by the KKVES. With panchayat elections around the corner, the meeting sought to focus public attention on the crisis unfolding at Thottappally. The date carried a symbolic significance as it marked the 1,626th day of the KKVES’ indefinite relay hunger strike against sand mining.

A.R. Kannan, an Alappuzha district panchayat member from Ambalapuzha and member of the Matsya Thozhilali Congress, said the UDF was always critical of sand mining and he was confident that “things will change now”. He was present in the November meeting, as was M. Liju, MLA and Cabinet Minister in the new government. Liju had vowed to take necessary action if his party won the Assembly election in 2026. Whether the new government will make good its promise remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the toll on Thottappally has been a heavy one, especially for individuals who opposed sand mining and bore the consequences. Sajeevan, for instance, a fisherman from Thottappally, was reported missing by his family on September 29, 2021. Sajeevan used to be a local branch secretary of the CPI(M) but fell out with the party leadership after he joined the KKVES and was asked to stay away from the protests. After meeting the Chief Minister, Suresh Kumar said the Home Minister had promised an investigation into Sajeevan’s disappearance.

Coastal erosion

Sand mining in Thottappally has caused severe coastal erosion in the nearby panchayats of Ambalapuzha, Punnapra, Purakkad, Arattupuzha, and Thrikkunnapuzha too. This has resulted in the complete or partial destruction of 476 homes; another 1,600 homes in and around Thottappally are under immediate threat of being washed away.

Sasi, a fisher from Purakkad, built his house around 25 years ago. His wife, Lekha, said coastal erosion in the last six years had severely damaged the house. When the couple approached the State government seeking compensation to fix the house, they were told they could get benefits available in the Punargeham Scheme.

Under the rehabilitation-welfare scheme provided for coastal communities in the High Tide Line zone, a family can either choose Rs.10 lakh as compensation or relocate to residential complexes built by the government for affected families.

Other householders living along the coast have faced the ocean’s wrath in recent years. Few are willing to relocate to the residential complex offered by the government. Relocating, they fear, will impact their livelihood as fishers. Among other casualties of sand mining are the whistling pines on Thottappally beach, planted as part of a government initiative a few years ago. After 2018, these were extensively cut down so that earthmovers could operate smoothly while removing the sand. When local communities protested, the operation was carried out at night, with police deployments to stop protests.

The Thottappally coast is also renowned as an olive ridley turtle habitat and breeding space; this, too, has been affected.

A more insidious consequence of sand mining

There is a more insidious consequence of sand mining in Thottappally that local communities are dealing with: the impact on health. Silicosis is a major health hazard posed by sand mining, the other is cancer.

After sand is dredged from the estuary by IREL, the black sand is separated for mineral extraction. It is not, however, sent to the mineral extraction plant immediately and sometimes remains piled up near the harbour for months at a time. This concentrated black sand contains radioactive substances that emit radiation.

Studies conducted by Akhil R., a geology professor from Kannur University, has indicated that the concentration of radioactive minerals in these black sand deposits that are left out in the open potentially have carcinogenic effects on the local population. While the average world value for the probability of cancer occurrence is 0.29 x 10^-3, in Alappuzha it ranges from 0.04 x 10^-3 to 18.2 x 10^-3

Suresh Kumar said: “As health issues usually caused by high radiation began to surface, we demanded that the State government should conduct a medical camp.” Repeated calls for a proper medical survey went unheeded for a long time. In 2024, the District Medical Officer submitted a vague report dismissing any evidence of radiation-related medical risks in the region. Local communities were dismayed.

Bhadran said: “Various standards must be followed for mining in such a sensitive area. The Department of Atomic Energy must give clearance for mining at such a site. A radiological safety officer should be employed. There should be social and environmental impact assessments conducted.”

According to data published by Kerala’s Department of Mining and Geology, Thottappally is not on the list of the places that IREL and KMML are licensed to mine. This raises two grave questions: why does Thottappally have a mineral extraction plant in the first place, and why does the residual sand after mining get transported out of Thottappally? The plant, run by IREL, was set up soon after the harbour was opened..

Mineral extraction and role of CMRL

The question of mineral extraction brings us to the murky role that CMRL has been apparently playing in Thottappally. The company bought land rich in black sand deposit over an extensive area way back in 2001, presumably because it foresaw its revenue-generating potential. Suresh Kumar explained how CMRL profited after extensive estuary mining followed the 2018 flood: “KMML indirectly entered into business with CMRL through a memorandum of understanding with IREL. Under that agreement, minerals processed from the black sand were obtained by CMRL from IREL and sold back to KMML at exorbitant prices. This illicit networking involved huge corruption and roped in politicians from the regional level to the prominent ones in the State.” Protests led by the KKVES have highlighted the dubious relationship that allegedly exists between CMRL and KMML.

The KKVES has been asking what happens to the residual sand after black sand is separated for mineral extraction. Its activists say residual sand after mineral extraction is not deposited back in the Thottappally coast, which is in violation of sand mining procedure. According to data collected by the KKVES, between the time estuary mining started (around 2019) and early 2025, more than 54 lakh cubic metres of sand was “smuggled” out of the region.

The Irrigation Department’s 2019 order allowing KMML and IREL to dredge sand from the estuary clearly said that the sand should not be used for any other purpose. But local people say that sand, which as a commodity is in high demand in the construction industry, gets smuggled out of the area on a large scale.

The KKVES said no accurate data are provided on the volume of the sand dredged from the estuary, and there are no data provided by KMML or CMRL on the minerals extracted.  

That there is corruption involved became clear after the Income Tax Interim Settlement Board conducted an investigation into CMRL’s finances in 2019, which found that the company was inflating figures for expenses.

“Fictitious expenses” to the tune of Rs.134 crore were detected for the 2019–20 assessment year.

The probe revealed that huge bogus amounts were being booked under the heads of transport and sludge handling, and an equivalent amount of cash was being taken out. It was found that illegal cash payments made to individuals and media houses and donations to temples were listed under transportation expenses. This facilitated tax evasion and generation of unaccounted cash.

The chief financial officer (CFO) of CMRL, Suresh Kumar, admitted before the IT Settlement Board that such fraud had taken place but claimed it happened because of the company’s attempts to ensure an uninterrupted flow of raw materials and services. He also claimed that the payments were made on the instructions of CMRL’s managing director, S.N. Sasidharan Kartha, to various individuals and media houses to overcome certain “threats that hinder their mineral operations”.

The investigation also found loose handwritten sheets containing details of the aforementioned payments. The CFO of CMRL admitted that several recipients of the payments, whose names were denoted by their initials, were prominent politicians.

According to C.R. Neelakandan, an environmental and social activist, Thottappally risks meeting the same fate as Alappad, where he had worked closely with communities impacted by sand mining. “More than 80 per cent of Alappad’s coast has been erased by mining over the years. During the 2004 tsunami, it was one of the panchayats that recorded aggravated loss of human lives in Kerala. Thottappally seems to be heading in the same direction now, dragging along with it highly sensitive ecological regions like Kuttanad.”

Bharath Thampi is an independent journalist from Kerala.

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