New Delhi | April 12, 2016: The government has taken a tough stand against mining mafia, deciding to monitor all mines, including minerals such as limestone and sand, through space technologies, and to ask states to quantify past illegal mining activities and actions taken to check them.
Mines secretary Balvinder Kumar told ET that satellite mapping of mines will start with major minerals such as iron ore and gold, and will be gradually extended to minor minerals like limestone and sand where the problem is severe.
"Once fully implemented, the move will bring about transformation in the Indian mining industry. We have identified large chunks of illegal mining in many areas. It is rampant in case of minor minerals like limestone and sand in states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana. We will ask states to quantify losses due to illegal mine activities and explain their positions to us," Kumar said.
Rampant illegal mining in Karnataka and Goa led to mining bans by the Supreme Court in 2011and 2012. Sand mining in Uttar Pradesh has been a cause of concern for state and central governments.
The mines ministry started pilot monitoring projects about four months ago in collaboration with the Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics for 400 mines in Gujarat, extending these later to four mines each in other states. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in September last year urged use of space-based technologies to curb illegal mining.
Kumar said in the next three months all 4,000-odd mines with major minerals such as bauxite, copper, manganese, nickel and zinc will be mapped by satellites for monitoring. Under this process, digitised revenue maps of each mine will be superimposed on their respective GPS (Global Positioning System) enabled mining plans.
This is expected to help the mines ministry collect satellite images of all blocks every month and detect illegal activities within 500 metres of the earmarked boundaries of the mines.
The Indian Bureau of Mines, which promotes scientific development of mineral resources, will be the nodal agency to implement the satellite monitoring measures. Kumar said the bureau will set up a control room for regular monitoring and detection of illegal mining. So far, satellite services have been used to estimate presence of minerals in an area.
Coal India, the world's largest coal miner, has also begun electronic fencing of its mines and fitting GPS tracking devices on its trucks transporting coal from pitheads to curb pilferage. The state-run coal monopoly expects to finish the task by the end of this month.
(Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/)