Date | April 22, 2016:

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has slammed the state government for not having prepared a policy for extraction of minerals other than sand and also for lack of a centralised data.

In its report tabled in the state legislature recently, the CAG expressed concern over lack of excavation of minor minerals, especially when they got an answer from the mining department for not being aware of the presence of precious stones like cavansite, pentagonite in Pune district.

In their report, the CAG has pointed out that without this data, “such minerals could not be effectively monitored”. Officials from the district department said there was no such data and they would work towards it.

“We do not have the data. However, we will try and put the same together,” said a senior official from the district.

The CAG report stated that minor minerals comprise sand, stones, murum and ordinary clay, and of these minerals, the identification of sand ghats has been done and Sand Policy of 2010 has been replaced by Sand Policy of 2013. However, there is no policy for extraction of other minor minerals like stone, murum etc. Prior to 2013, the mining operations of minor mineral could be done without the mining plan, while environment clearance was needed for extraction of mineral from 2012.

Recommending preparation of a database indicating the areas as well as quantum of the minor minerals available, the report said it was essential for the government to have a centralised data about quantum of minor mineral (other than sand) and location. “With no such data, the management of the minor mineral could not be effectively monitored,” stated the report.

The CAG also expressed concern over the mining department not being aware of the presence of precious stones. “This indicated that there is a lack of prospecting of mineral mines,” it observed.

Citing an example, the CAG said during the inspection in Kolhapur and Thane districts, the department had detected 46 cases of illegal extraction of 1.16 lakh brass clay. They have said the penalty was to be recovered at the rate of mineral mentioned in the District Scheduled Rate. However, in Thane, in five cases neither royalty of Rs 2.08 crore nor penalty of Rs 6.35 crore was recovered,” stated the report.

The CAG said it has noticed that the government lands were allotted for 28 leases of minor minerals and 13 leases of major minerals in Raigad, Chandrapur, Yavatmal and Nagpur districts. Of the nine districts checked, lease rent of Rs 12.90 crore for 2014 alone was not levied by the concerned collectors on government lands leased out for the mining activities. The CAG in its report has also recommended that the government may devise a suitable mechanism for information sharing between regional transport office, police and revenue department for checking illegal transportation of minerals.

(Source: http://indianexpress.com/)