New Delhi | June 28, 2016: The government proposes to use satellite mapping to identify places where sustainable sand mining can be allowed, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change said in a statement on Tuesday.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) Prakash Javadekar, who also launched a new web portal for online submissions and monitoring of approvals for mining of sand and minor minerals, said that satellite mapping and bar-coded receipts will help curb illegal sand mining and illegal transportation of sand.

The web portal will allow project proponents to track their applications online, the Minister said.

“The web portal is a district-level, web-based and role-based workflow application for online submission and monitoring of proposals for Category B’2’projects,” the Ministry statement said.

The statement added, “Some of the features of the application include submission of all projects in a single window interface; facilitate management in effective monitoring; delays in the clearance process can be ascertained; a unique ID for each proposal for future reference; accessible from any PC having internet facility and different types of privileges/roles for users as per their responsibilities.”

(Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/)