Sand Harvesting and Marketing Policy to be Made in State

Bhopal: Suggestions have been invited for the citizens for the proposed Sand Mining System till August 10, 2017. Suggestions can be forwarded to the website of the Mining Department. It may be mentioned that Geologists, Businessmen, stakeholders, Senior Officers of the department and Technical Experts had participated in a workshop held on July 21 for deliberations to frame Sand Harvesting and Marketing Policy favourable to the rivers in the state. After the deliberations, recommendations were made preparing 4 models in the state and Sand Harvesting and Marketing Policy has been proposed based on these recommendations.

Consensus has been expressed during the workshop that sand harvesting should be carried out on the basis of scientific method, moreover it should be carried out in such a quantity so that no damage should be caused to the rivers’ condition. Sand condition could vary on the rivers. Hence, this should also be ascertained with scientific method. Deliberations on how to control the rate of sand being provided to the consumers could be controlled were held in the workshop and recommendations were made. In all 4 models have been recommended for sand harvesting and marketing including first model i.e. current system in the state, second Telangana model and third model i.e. system prevalent in Chhattisgarh at present.

Under the proposed fourth model, it was proposed in the workshop that re-estimation of available sand quantity should be carried out in non-operational mines. The mines which are still non-operational should be canceled and Government/Corporation should obtain environment and other permissions towards arrangement for availability of 1.00 crore cubic meter sand through e-auction system within 6 months. The corporation should mine around 50 lakh cubic meter sand according to the model no.2 i.e. Telangana model. Beside this, sand transport companies should be formed in major cities like Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur and Gwalior on the lines of BRTS for sand transportation.

Similarly, arrangements should be made for sand harvesting on mining sites itself, vigilance and enforcement, vehicles’ tracking, check posts and weighing scales. Also suggestion for making arrangement at check posts as per the PPP model was given in the workshop.-WTN