Real-time detection of illegal mining soon

Soon, illegal mining activities across the country will be detected on a real-time basis and action would be initiated within minutes of the activity being reported. The Union mines ministry has prepared a “Mining Surveillance System (MSS)”, under which notified boundaries of mining areas spread across India have been superimposed on digitised cadestal maps. Therefore, the moment satellites will pass over these, any mining activity taking place outside the jurisdiction of the notified area will immediately come to notice.

The NDA government, which has been associated with smart governance wherein it has launched several simple usage mobile applications in various fields (not to mention the application named after Prime Minister Narendra Modi — Narendra Modi app — which provides regular updates about his activities), has now devised the MSS software as well as a related mobile application which will provide updates on any illegal mining activity taking place anywhere the country on a real-time basis.

Work on detecting unauthorised mining activities through satellite mapping began soon after the Justice M.B. Shah Commission, which was probing illegal mining activities in several states, came out with some strong recommendations on how to curb the menace.

According to highly placed sources, the Centre is currently verifying boundaries of all the 3,900 mining areas of the country. This process is expected to be completed by September 20, and after this the boundaries of these areas will be superimposed on cadestal maps under MSS.

In addition to this, the mines ministry is also coming out with a mobile application where satellite images of mining areas showing activities outside the actual jurisdiction of the notified area could immediately be sent to the local administration of the district where the activity has taken place.

On the basis of this, the state administration and concerned district magistrates (of districts where illegal mining has been detected) will be alerted on a real-time basis and they will be able to take action against such activities within a short span of time.

Sources informed that control rooms will be set up in Hyderabad from where the satellite images would be sent to the concerned states where the activities have been detected.

To begin with, boundaries of mining areas where major minerals are extracted, have been superimposed on digitised cadestal maps. Gradually, areas where minor minerals are extracted, will also be linked to the system.

Sources added that mainly minor minerals are illegally mined and therefore the Centre has currently taken on board Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana to start using MSS, as minor minerals fall under the states’ jurisdiction.

Deep seated minerals like coal, iron ore, bauxite, manganese, gold, etc., are known as major minerals, while minerals which are locally available, like sand and limestone, are classified as minor minerals.