The State government is contemplating setting up a ‘mineral protection force’ — a special police force to regulate and check crimes related to mineral wealth, including sand.
Announcing this in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, Leader of the House S.R. Patil said that to make supply of sand transparent and more “people-friendly”, the government had decided to issue sand permits online. These permits could be verified at check-posts. Installation of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices in sand-transporting lorries had been made mandatory so their movement could be tracked.
Replying to the issue of rampant illegal extraction and transportation of sand raised by Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council K.S. Eshwarappa, he said the government had taken all steps to check illegal sand extraction in the State.
Goonda ActThe government had also decided to invoke the Goonda Act against repeat offenders and a draft in this regard had been sent to the Home Department. “In all probability, the legislation will be tabled in the next session,” he noted.
While the annual demand for the sand is 23 million tonnes, supply is around 9 million tonnes (including 7.5 million tonnes of river sand and 1.5 million tonnes of manufactured sand — M-Sand — which is produced from hard granite stone by crushing, a substitute for construction purposes).
In view of scarcity of sand, the government was planning to promote private companies to set up M-Sand units in rocky areas of Kolar and Tumkur districts and a directive had been issued to Public Works Department to use M-Sand in all public works. There was also a plan to use green slag, a byproduct generated during the production of iron and steel, he explained.
House CommitteeRaising the issue, Mr. Eshwarappa demanded the constitution of a House Committee to study the entire gamut of issues and amend the existing Act based on recommendations of the committee. However, Mr. Patil rejected the demand.
Mr. Eshwarappa alleged that a mafia was controlling the extraction and distribution of sand. Children of prominent politicians too were involved in supplying the sand. The commodity had become costlier than gold. Attempts were being made to “sacrifice” honest officials, he said.