The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) has begun investigating alleged illegal sand mining valued at Rs 4,730 crore across 28 river sand mining sites in Tamil Nadu, after receiving a complaint from the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The DVAC has sent notices to contractors, officials and others named in connection with the allegations, according to a report by Deccan Chronicle. The vigilance agency will conduct a detailed enquiry to establish a prima facie case before deciding whether to register a case.
The ED had written to the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police on 13 June 2024, requesting the registration of a First Information Report based on evidence it said it had collected during its investigation. The ED later sent a reminder to the DGP, but the complaint did not lead to police action at that stage, according to the report.
The central allegation concerns the scale of excavation beyond the areas officially permitted for mining. The ED said sand mining permissions across the 28 sites covered 196 hectares, while surveys indicated that excavation had taken place across 987 hectares. On that basis, the value of the allegedly illegally mined sand was estimated at Rs 4,730 crore.
The assessment was not based only on manual inspection. The ED said it used GPS-based measurements and scientific methods involving experts associated with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. The agency also referred to drone surveys, LiDAR scans and satellite-imagery processing in its assessment of the mining activity.
The use of these tools is significant to the investigation because river sand extraction is spread across large and changing landscapes that can be difficult to measure through routine site inspections alone. The ED said the survey compared permitted mining areas with the areas where excavation was detected, producing the estimate of mining beyond authorised limits.
The allegations place the management of river sand at the intersection of environmental regulation, construction supply and public administration. Sand is a critical input for the construction sector, while river mining can alter riverbeds and affect the wider ecological and water-management systems around extraction sites. The supplied report does not detail the specific environmental damage alleged at each location or the response of the contractors and officials who received the notices.
The DVAC enquiry will determine whether the material supplied by the ED establishes a prima facie case and whether a formal criminal case should follow. The current action is therefore an investigation stage, and the allegations have not yet been established in court. Further developments will depend on the responses to the notices and the findings of the DVAC’s detailed enquiry.
