Assam Students' Body Flags Illegal Riverbed Mining in Dima Hasao

A tribal students' organisation in Assam has raised alarm over what it describes as unscientific, illegal and excessive riverbed mining in Dima Hasao district, warning that the practice is eroding riverbanks, endangering transport links and depleting drinking water sources.

The All Dimasa Students' Union (ADSU) placed its concerns before the district's Chief Conservator of Forests in a complaint submitted on Friday. The letter, signed by general secretary Suraj Naiding and president Arujit Kemprai, points to unregulated commercial extraction of sand, gravel, stone and boulders along the Diyung, Mahur, Langting and Jatinga rivers, driven largely by heavy mechanised excavators working inside active river channels.

According to the union, such dredging and riverbed scooping destabilise banks and speed up soil erosion during the monsoon, putting National Highway 27 and railway lines at risk and triggering recurrent landslides near inhabited areas. It also warns of damage to aquatic ecosystems, saying excessive siltation and disturbance of riverbeds destroy breeding grounds, harm native and endangered fish species and disrupt natural hydrology.

The ADSU contends that deep mining breaches the water table, lowering groundwater levels and drying up gravity-fed streams that supply rural settlements. Communities dependent on these rivers for traditional fishing, agriculture and household water are, it says, already facing socio-economic distress.

The union notes that Dima Hasao is an ecologically fragile hill region protected under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, and argues that the extraction violates the Assam Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 2013, Supreme Court guidelines laid down in Deepak Kumar versus State of Haryana (2012), and National Green Tribunal directions barring heavy mechanised in-stream mining without approved district survey reports and valid environmental clearances.

The ADSU has asked for an immediate halt to illegal mining, including a cease-and-desist order against non-compliant sites and the impounding of unauthorised machinery operating in river channels. It has also sought a joint ground inspection and audit through a task force bringing together the Forest Department, Revenue and Forest officials of the Dima Hasao Autonomous Council, the district civil administration, ecological experts and local student representatives.

Further, the union has demanded penal action against operators and quarry owners working without approved mining plans, valid leases or clearances from the State-Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. It has also called for scientific demarcation of no-mining ecological zones covering critical river bends, bridge buffers, erosion-prone stretches and other sensitive areas.