The Environment Ministry has notified the minor mineral mining policy, decentralising the process of granting environmental clearance (EC) for sustainable mining of sand and minerals. The policy also lays down hi-tech monitoring mechanisms to nab illegal miners and sand mafias in the country.
“We have made a policy which is scientific, sustainable, technology-driven, user-friendly, decentralised and has strong monitoring system,” said Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar at a Press conference on Thursday. The new policy will check illegal mining and allow serious, legitimate players to remain in business, he added.
As per the policy, the districts will, henceforth, decide on ECs for 5 hectares (ha) of individual lease and 25 ha in cluster. For areas up to 50 ha, their State counterparts will be responsible for green approvals. The Ministry will step in to give clearances for areas above 50 ha.
To make the policy functional, the districts have been asked to set up the District Environment Impact Assessment Authority (DEIAA) at the earliest. The chairperson of four-member DEIAA will be District Magistrate or District Collector and the Member Secretary will be SDM/SDO. The other two members are DFO and an expert to be nominated by Divisional Commissioner.
DEIAA will be assisted by an eleven-member District-level Expert Appraisal Committee (DEAC). The chairperson of the DEAC will be Executive Engineer, Irrigation Department and Member Secretary will be Assistant Director, or Deputy Director or District Mines Officer or Geologist in the district.
Another important feature of the policy is use of technology and technology-enabled services to track mined-out minerals. Their movement will be controlled through Transit Permit. The security feature of Transit Permit include, printing on Indian Bank Association (IBA) approved Magnetic Ink Character Recognition( MICR) paper, Unique Barcode, Unique Quick Response code, Fugitive Ink Background, Invisible Ink Mark, Void Pantograph and Watermark. Information technology tools such as bar coding and SMS will be used to monitor the mined out material from source to destination.
However, extraction of ordinary clay or sand manually by potters and earthen tile makers, removal of sand deposited on agricultural field after flood by farmers, dredging and de-silting of dam, reservoirs, barrage and canals have been exempted from EC.
The policy also lays down punitive provisions against the illegal miners. This may include confiscation of vehicles carrying illegally mined sand, recovering huge amount (five to 10 times of the market value of the seized minerals) and seizures of all the equipments or machineries involved in mining in non-leased areas.