Concerned over mining being hindered at the expense of the State exchequer, MlA Navprabhat moved a notice in the House on Friday and appealed to the State Government to go for a policy on dredging in the place of the mining policy.
He said that Yamuna riverbeds being full of mining materials with agricultural land being affected during rain, something must be done to reverse things. CM Harish Rawat assured that he would make dredging policy replacing the mining policy. CM said that rivers are changing courses with the leveling of the river base not being done properly.
“It is a requirement to do mining but we could not due to environmental restraint,” CM said. He further said that if mining is not done in Gaula, Asan, Yamuna and Ganga, then UP would mint money. As we are not doing mining in Haridwar, those from Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar are minting money.
“Now, a few people have become billionaire with the mining business. As Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar border involving UP and Uttarakhand is porous, we could hardly deploy the required quantum of police force on a daily basis. Being the CM I should not have talked like this. But this is a compulsion. If I allow mining the opposition would blame me and if I do not allow, his heart would trouble him,” CM said
Taking a dig at the Opposition, sitting in protest at the entrance of the House, Rawat said that it is true that the opposition is empowered to scrutinise the Government’s decision. “ But it is also true that the people has given us the mandate to take decisions in the State’s interests. As far as action against illegal mining is concerned my government has penalised a huge number of the crusher,” he said.
Navprabhat suggested that the State can earn more than Rs 200-300 crore by imposing hoarding of mining materials to maintain the stock registers about from where they procure the materials.
“Currently, they are being asked to issue delivery bills but they are not being forced to maintain the bill stating whence they procured the materials. Due to this, illegal mining has been thriving and the State exchequer is incurring revenue losses,” he said.