PATNA | Nov 29, 2017: State mines and geology minister Vinod Kumar Singh said in the assembly on Tuesday that the government would facilitate the sale of sand and stone chips through licensed retail outlets from December 1 as the unregulated business yielded only Rs100 crore to the government against Rs10,000 crore going to the kitty of those engaged in the business.

He also said the government would regulate the sale of sand and chips through retail outlets under the new rules it has framed. "The new rules will come into force from December 1," he said while giving the government's reply to the call attention notice of 20 lawmakers from the ruling NDA combine of JD(U) and BJP besides Rashtriya Lok Samata Party.

Curiously, while the opposition members did not put any supplementary, BJP members Sachindra Prasad Singh, Sanjay Sarawagi, Vidyasagar Kesri and Jiwesh Kumar as well as Vinod Prasad Yadav from the JD(U) and Lalan Paswan from the RLSP questioned the minister on the new rules and the government decision to sell sand and chips through retail outlets.

They reminded the minister that the Patna high court on Monday stayed the implementation of the new rules. However, Singh expressed ignorance of the ground, points and terms on which the high court had stayed the implementation of the new rules. Further, they feared that the cost of sand and chips would go far above the rates that prevailed before the government cracked down on the sand and chips mining and sale business.

Calling the new rules "impractical" and anti-small businessmen and farmers, they said these made it mandatory for any tractor transporting sand to fix GPS and e-lock device in the vehicle. They sought to know from the minister if sand would be available in the market at the rate of Rs3,700 per trailer. Incidentally, the stone chips mining in the state met only around 15% of the demand, while the rest were imported from other states, they told the minister.

"The price of sand and chips will be kept under control and supply will be maintained," the minister assured the House.

The minister said the government would give license to interested persons through lottery system organized by the district administration concerned. "There will be no scarcity of sand and chips in the state," Singh said.

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