Date | May 22, 2017:

The Madhya Pradesh government has ordered a complete ban on sand mining from the Narmada river. The river flows through 18 districts in Madhya Pradesh and the ban will be effective in all those districts.

The ban will be in place until a government-appointed committee decides how much sand can be safely mined from the river without causing any damage to it, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said in Bhopal on Monday.

"We have appointed a committee headed by cabinet minister Rajendra Shukla. The committee will decide on the issue on recommendations from IIT Kharagpur with whom we have signed an MOU. Till the time the committee comes out with its findings there will be a complete ban on sand mining from the Narmada river," Chouhan said.

The state government has also imposed a complete ban on use of all kinds of machines for mining from the remaining rivers in the state. "The rivers have to be conserved for future generations. Machines cause damage to rivers and hence they have been banned. All district collectors have been directed to seize all such machines," Chouhan said.

On how he proposed to deal with the resulting sand scarcity and impact it is likely to have on the infrastructure sector, Chouhan said, "The government has decided to promote the use of manufactured sand. Sand can be manufactured by crushing stone and for the initial three years we will not impose any royalty on the stone that will be used for manufacturing sand."

Chouhan recently had undertaken a five-month Narmada Seva Yatra, visiting the 18 districts through which the river flows and had pledged to make river conservation into a mass movement.

He had, however, faced criticism from the opposition Congress party which had questioned the BJP chief minister's intent.

(Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/)