Red flagged for illegal mining, Himachal Government plans to auction stone quarrying and sand mining sites so as to overcome construction material shortages, regulate the sector and legalize the activity.
Tied down by the National Green Tribunal diktat banning mining activity alongside all rivers, and ministry of forest and environment withholding mining lease clearances for years, Industry minister Mukhesh Agnihotri, who also looks after mining, told reporters on Tuesday, “to kick start mining operations, the department has identified sites in Una, Kangra and Hamirpur districts which would be thrown open for bidding by open auction procedures soon.”
He said “there are about 300 stone crushers in the state and of the 345 mining leases handed out only 166 were operational whereas another 188 were in limbo because of lack of clearances from the environment ministry.”
“The demand from construction industry and road construction department is large and the construction materials needed was unavailable. HP Public Works Departments road projects alone worth about 2000 crore were stuck up or slowed down because of unavailability of sand or gravel for layering needs,” said Agnihotri.
Despite the huge demand, the environment ministry has only cleared 17 mining leases for Himachal Pradesh. Even of the 166 ongoing leases, wherever the lease period ended it was not being renewed for want of the mandatory environmental clearance that was not easy to get by, added the Minister.He said auctioning of identified mining lease sites would be for a ten-year period that takes into account a two-year period which it normally takes to obtain an environment clearance from Central authorities.
A ten-year period would help miner to make adequate investment, would curtail illegal mining and help the department to regulate the activity, said the Minister.Talking about the difficulties the hilly state faced, the minister said that at places it was even necessary to undertake mining in river beds and banks so as to clear choking and flooding spots.The government was making all efforts to check illegal mining and had even imposed a fine to the tune of Rs4.26 crore on the 7632 people fined in 2013-14 for undertaking the activity illegally. In this fiscal by June a fine of Rs67 lakh had been imposed and recovered.
Surprisingly the deterrent fine for the illegal activity was Rs25000 per case and also could invite a two year imprisonment term. But there have been no case of illegal miners being jailed for carrying out the activity.