Road Infra: It's Time for a Sustainable Rethink

Mining mountains in the name of development needs a serious rethink.

- T MANO THANGARAJ

Large-scale extraction of rough stone, gravel, m-sand, and p-sand for infrastructure projects is leading to a serious environmental crisis in India. Destroying natural landscapes disrupts the hydrological cycle, weathering patterns, groundwater levels, greenery, and biodiversity. Tamil Nadu alone has over 2,000 stone quarries, producing around 4 lakh tonnes of m-sand in addition to other materials daily. Kanniyakumari district administration states nearly 50,000 tonnes of quarry stones are transported to Kerala each day via Kanniyakumari district. This scale of extraction is bound to hurt the environment.

It's time to rethink India's infrastructure strategy and policy. Roads need to be rebuilt every five years. This should make us look at road development through a different lens.