Financial Times

Mahaweli could solve sand crisis if properly managed
By Quintus Perera
Welikanda -- Passing Polonnaruwa, the Manampitiya Bridge that accommodates the railway track and the road on the same passage alternately could be one of the longest bridges in Sri Lanka.

Beneath it flows the great Mahaweli river, which could be a great source of sand for construction if properly used. Two weeks ago when The Sunday Times FT team visited the area, the entire stretch of the river across measuring about 160 metres could be seen as a huge sand mass and within this sand mass there were small patches of water holes.

Manampitiya bridge is the gateway to the East from Polonnaruwa and due to security risks, it is heavily fortified with troops on other side. Little beyond Manampitiya is Welikanda. Mahaweli means great sand and Welikanda means mountain of sand.

True to this connection to sand in the river plus the area a little beyond the bridge towards Welikanda, there is hectic activity: Mountains of sand piled up, rows of tractors unloading sand and a large number of huge trucks being loaded with sand to be transported to areas where sand is scarce, but at a great price. Most of these trucks travel to Colombo.

There is a scarcity of sand for construction purposes in most parts of the country especially in the Western Province. Manampitiya sand dealers said the sand here is classified as the best and a cube of this sand in Colombo would cost Rs 6,000 to 6,500 per cube. Normally sand costs around Rs 4,500.

We wondered whether miners had got permits to remove this large resource or sand or whether it was an illegal operation that was going on. An army officer nearby said sand mining is on permits and mostly upstream.

When we walked upstream around four kilometres through scrub jungle on a tractor track there were a large number of people dipping in some of the water holes in the vast sand mass and bringing up basket loads of sand to the shore which are then briskly loaded to tractors.

Sand mining at Manampitiya is legal and 80 people around the area have formed the Mahaweli Sand Mining Co-operative Society Ltd for this purpose. Each member employs four sand miners and each miner brings in one cube of sand per day. The daily average is around 400 cubes per day.

K Bandara, President, Co-operative Society said, “Manampitiya sand is the best. There are no stones and a cube of it in Colombo fetches around Rs 6,000 to 6,500 but we are selling at Rs 900 to Rs 1,000 maximum”. He said that most of the sand is taken to Colombo and the day’s collection is cleared the same day.

Usually miners dip in the water and bring up the basket of sand and fill the barges. But in Manampitiya it is quite different and difficult because after mining it has to be carried across sand dunes of about 50 feet with each load weighing around 200 ilos.

When asked whether the Co-operative Society itself could transport the sand to Colombo so that they could have a better margin of profit, Bandara said that they are very poor and cannot afford such heavy investment. He said that a truck normally holds about four cubes and to transport that load to Colombo the transporter charges Rs 16,000 to 20,000.

In addition to the 320-odd miners, there are also the tractor drivers, loaders and truck drivers and cleaners and altogether there are about 750 workers on site. In this sand project there are also several thousands employed indirectly.
An experienced transporter in Colombo said that the cost of transport per cube to Colombo could be Rs 2,000 maximum. Considering the selling price of sand per cube at Rs 1000 at mining site and the actual transport cost of Rs 2,000, the price of a cube of Manampitiya sand would be Rs 3,000. As in many other cases, the middleman’s exploitation appears to be criminal as he would get up to Rs 3,000 to 3,500 as his profit.

Bandara said that a large number of poor people who live around the area are entirely dependant on sand mining here. But the sand mining operations is seasonal and lasts only for six months per year. During the dry season the entire river resembles a huge patch of sand, but with the coming of the wet season the entire sand mass would be covered with a huge sheet of water impacting on the miners and their jobs and with them several thousands in-between.

Considering all the data available on sand mining and availability, it is reasonable to assume that there is sufficient sand available in the country. The biggest problem is transport. There also appears to a failure of forecasting the quantum of sand that is available for mining by official agencies.
According to a high official of the Geological Survey and Mining Bureau (GSMB) , prospects of an impending sand shortage were known more than three years ago.

However no mechanism was created to get sand from any other source with sand mining being prohibited in various places. The sea sand available at Muthurajawela is not mined for the use of construction work, but because the authorities failed to find any alternative way for the last three to four years, the sand that was mined for the use of the Katunayake Colombo Expressway is now allowed to be used for construction purposes.

The GSMB was unable to indicate the quantity of sand available for mining, the demand and supply positions. It was also unable to say in the prohibited areas, how much of sand has been mined in the past.

Though GSMB accepted treated sea sand as an alternative to river sand, for the last three years the authorities have failed to commence any tangible work on off-shore sand mining. On the other hand private sector entrepreneurs are forging ahead in finding out new processes to obtain large quantities of sand inland.

At a recent seminar conducted to educate contractors the suitability of sea sand for construction work it was revealed that large quantities of sand is available in the North and East, especially in areas such as Jaffna, Mannar and Kilinochchi. It appears that even the Mahaweli, if systematically operated, has a large resource of sand that could be extracted.

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