PANAJI | Sept 08, 2017:

The government will be announcing a new sand mining policy before the season restarts on October 1, informed a source on Thursday.

The policy will be aimed at streamlining sand excavation activities and increasing royalty to the government.

The policy is expected to focus on monitoring the activities while ensuring better balance between permit holders’ income and the economy.

The policy is not expected to tinker with present sand mining zones or royalty fee of Rs 41.20 per cubic metre paid by permit holders, said the source.

Its purpose is to minimise illegal sand mining and reduce damage to the environment as much as possible.

The policy is also likely to touch on sand being brought from outside the state, and may impose an entry fee on sand imported from the other states.

A senior official at the mining department said that, while the government has issued around 441 permits to sand extractors, the royalty is received from only a percentage of the permit holders.

“Several permit holders do not pay royalty under the excuse of not taking their canoes in the river,” the official added.

Further, the department also has no way of knowing whether the permit holder is extracting sand up to the extraction limit or involved in over-extracting, added the official.

The forthcoming policy is expected to address the lacuna and ensure better compliance. Post-implementation, the department officials will undertake strict enforcement of the rules, said the official.

The policy is also expected to revisit the current rules on sand mining, several of which although necessary, are impractical.

The policy is likely to have simplified rules for licensed sand miners while curtailing the chances of illicit operations. Meanwhile, the department of mines has not started renewing the permits of licence holders. Renewal of permits is likely to take place after the policy is put in place.

Meanwhile, in 2016-17, the government had earned Rs 66.6 lakh royalty from sand mining. Legal sand mining in the state started after a long gap of five years during 2016-17. The government in March 2016 had announced several guidelines for sand mining.

These included installing canoes with GPS, and every vehicle used in the transportation of sand being issued with a transit pass.

As per the guidelines, sand extraction could only be carried out by a licence holder, who would also be the owner of the vessel.

Sand mining is a traditional activity in Goa and extraction is from the river beds. Most of the sand mining takes place in north district. In other states, sand mining is from dry river beds unlike Goa where extraction is from flowing rivers.

(Source: http://www.navhindtimes.in/)