VIJAYAWADA: Officials of the Mines department are giving the final touches to the new mining policy so as to enforce it in a fortnight. The officials say that they have laid emphasis on environmental issues in the draft policy. It also aims at generating additional income to the government and reducing the burden on the people.
“After studying the policies being implemented in several other States and considering the environmental issues, we have prepared the draft of new sand policy and will submit it to the Chief Minister. We will tweak it as per the directions of the Chief Minister,’’ said an official of the Mines and Geology department.
Speaking to TNIE, the official said that due to lack of supervision of sand reaches during the previous government under the free-sand policy, mining was carried out indiscriminately in several reaches, compromising on environmental benchmarks. This has resulted in non-availability of sand across 100 reaches out of the total 200 across the State, he said.
“However, as monsoon is set to hit State by next week, the demand for sand will decline in the next four months as construction activity will come down by 50 per cent. Further, during the monsoon, the reaches will also witness recharge and we are hoping that there will be enough sand in all reaches by the end of October and by then, we can also overcome issues coming in the way of effective implementation of the new policy,’’ the official explained.
The official said they will mark the boundaries for every reach and limit sand mining taking into consideration all the issues pertaining to the location of the reach.
The official added that they are also studying the national sand policy, in which stress was laid on protection of environment while allowing sand mining.
“The intention of the government is to curb indiscriminate sand mining and give relief to customers by avoiding middlemen. At the same time, the State government can also get some revenue by auctioning the reaches and streamlining the system without causing damage to the environment. Thus, it will be a win-win situation for all,’’ the official observed.