KANNUR(Kerala)| April 05, 2015: The CPI(M) has called on the authorities to take urgent steps to lift the ban on sand-mining that has brought the construction sector to a standstill.
The CPI(M) district secretariat said in a pressnote that the District Collector’s order banning sand-mining on March 27 followed the Green Tribunal’s verdict.
Alleging that the State government’s failure to hold timely sand audit had led to the Green Tribunal’s order, the CPI(M) secretariat said the Tribunal’s intervention followed the negligence on the part of the authorities to conduct the audit.
Earlier, the sand audit had been conducted and sand-mining permission given by the local bodies. The audit conducted then by the Centre for Water Resource Development and Management (CWRDM) had been valid till May 31, 2014, it said recalling that sand-mining had been banned since June 12, 2014 owing to the absence of a new audit. The Collector lifted the sand-mining ban in October last year following protests by organisations in the construction sector and the public, it said.
The CPI(M) district secretariat noted that thousands of workers in the construction sector were left jobless by the ban. The effect of the ban would be reflected in other sectors, it added. The secretariat informed that 24,000 applications for purchase of sand were pending in the district, most of them for construction of small houses.
(Source: http://www.thehindu.com/)