DEHRADUN | Aug 02, 2016: Soon after taking charge as mines and mineral development, minister Navprabhat who was recently inducted in the Harish Rawat-led cabinet has claimed of doubling the revenue generated from the mining in the state in one year's span. At present the revenue realized from mining is Rs 250 crore per annum, and the minister intends to take it up to Rs 500 crore annually. The mining of Silica which is almost nil will be activated in Uttarkashi and areas of Yamuna valley. The minister said that he would stop illegal and mechanized micro (river sand) mining in the river bed and start taking action against offenders from August 31.
"A part of fund generated from micro mining goes for the training of forest personal in river management. Now I would see that the trained forest personal also utilize the knowledge of river management for the sand mining. This would help us in minimizing the damage inflicted by flooded rivers to our farming land," the minister said.
He said, he would study the environmental factors due to which the micro mining have been badly hit from year 2007 to 2016 and remove those bottlenecks. Thereafter state mining policy will also be framed "No more mechanized form of micro mining would be permitted in the state. It has to be manually and scientifically. We would adhere to the guidelines of the Centre in this regard. And illegal mining would be totally banned. The punitive action against offenders will start from August 31. With these measures in place, we can raise our revenue from Rs 250 crore to Rs 500 crore in a year," he said.
In the realm of macro mining, he said, "Khadia mining is taking place at Bagheshwar and Almora where 95% of good quality material goes to Rajasthan. But Silica extraction is almost nil in Uttarkashi and Yamuna valley, which has to be further activated. In both the cases, illegal mining is rampant due to shortcomings in our departmental set up than with the traders, which has to be corrected."
(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)