Bhubaneswar: Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy has directed the Water Resources department to identify sand beds in major rivers like Mahanadi and Rushikulya for mining in a bid to meet the rising market demand.
Holding a high-level meeting in virtual mode Friday, Tripathy asked the Water Resources secretary Anu Garg to scientifically identify sand beds in major rivers like Mahanadi, Rushikulya, Subarnarekha, Baitarani and Brahmani keeping in view the uninterrupted flow of the water and other environmental issues. Garg was advised the officials to complete 1st phase of identification of sand beds in two months.
Five large stretches of river sand beds (four in Jajpur and one in Angul district) with area above 100 acre have so far been identified for sand mining.
Tripathy advised Additional Chief Secretary, Forest & Environment, Mona Sharma, to make State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) more efficient with necessary technical and manpower support. He asked her to expedite the issue environmental clearances within specified time period.
Revenue and Disaster Management secretary Bishnupada Sethi said, “Because of the extensive efforts in the current year, the total number of minor mineral sources, as of today has reached 4,667 out of which 1,428 have already been put to operation.”
During the meeting, the Chief Secretary directed the district Collectors to operationalise all potential sources by November-end, he said.
While complimenting the department and field officials for their efforts, Tripathy directed them to evolve the strategy for optimising the sustainable use of the minor minerals.
He instructed the officials to focus on process reengineering for tracking the extraction and transportation of minor minerals through application of i4MS software.
Further, the Chief Secretary directed the officials to make a district-wise demand-supply gap assessment for monitoring the availability of minor minerals in all the districts. The issues relating to the scope of exploration of minor minerals from royalty land was also discussed in the meeting.
The state has collected revenue of Rs 680 crore from minor mineral sources during last financial year 2019-20, which is 124 per cent more than the previous fiscal.