Sand Minig: Centre mulls sustainable policy

With sand mining being a contentious issue in many states, the Centre has said that it will soon unveil a national policy on “sustainable” sand mining.

The Centre said that the policy will aim to ensure that the ecology of rivers is maintained, besides curbing instances of flooding.

Union minister for environment and forests Prakash Javadekar has said that the policy will be unveiled within two weeks. The government is likely to issue a draft notification. The government hopes that with the new policy, major mining and other such practices will become more sustainable.

Illegal mining has grown out to be a contentious issue in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where a number of sand mafias are allegedly flouting all rules.

“Illegal sand mining has become a headache all over the country. As a regulatory ministry, we are in the process of reforming all major mining and other practices to make them more sustainable. Therefore, we will soon unveil a sustainable sand mining policy,” said the minister, adding that the government will carry out satellite-mapping of such sand deposits to ensure that sand mining is carried out only in the area where sand is deposited naturally by the river. “Such mapping is key to the policy. Mining will be allowed only where sand is available. We will allow excavation of only a certain quantity of sand, which does not affect the life of rivers and their ecology and still sand is made available. This is the first part of the reforms,” Mr Javdekar said. He also said that the government is planning to control actual mining using a foolproof Web-based application to ensure contractors excavate only permissible quantity of sand.

“If somebody is given contract of extracting say 1,000 brass of sand, he/she many a times mine more than the permissible limit. So, we have come out with a foolproof Web-based application which will track movement of vehicles carrying sand,” he added.