BENGALURU | Sept 05, 2017: The government has decided to have a separate sand mining policy for the three coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada and Udupi to help traditional sand mining families continue with their livelihood.

After a cabinet meeting on Monday, law minister T B Jayachandra said the government approved a cabinet sub-committee recommendations of allowing traditional local sand miners to extract sand bars from the non-coastal regulation zone (CRZ) areas along the coastal line.

"While CRZ norms are controlled by the Centre, the powers to allow sand mining in non-CRZ areas are under the state government. Accordingly , we have decided to allow traditional sand miners in the region to extract river sand and sell them," the minister said. The non-CRZ region is beyond 500 meters from the defined coastline as per central government rules.

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)