No direct sale, sand will be kept in stockyards

CHANDIGARH: The final draft of the Punjab State Minor Minerals Policy, 2018, proposes that all the excavated sand would be moved to designated stockyards. These stockyards would be managed by the proposed

Punjab State Mineral Development Corporation

.

The corporation would take all the required clearances from the concerned departments and authorities before commencing mining operations. The contracts for the sand mines situated outside riverbeds and streams already given on lease would be allowed to be operated till the term of the agreement but no such contracts would be renewed.

The non-replenishing mines outside riverbeds would be mined as per the Punjab Minor Mineral Rules, 2013. A preliminary identification of potential mines outside riverbeds would be done by the state mines and geology department.

The details of these sites would be submitted to the ‘district level site appraisal committee’, which would forward its recommendations to corporation. The agency would then carry out the mining through contractors, who will be selected on the basis of lowest bid parameters.

The sand available with the crusher owner as byproduct or from gravel mines would be deposited with the nearest designated stockyard for further disposal by the corporation against a payment of 10% of the market price as compensation and remuneration.

The draft prepared by the three-minister sub-committee of the state cabinet also proposes maintenance of stockyards near the sand mines and desiltation sites where the sand can be stocked for further sale.

It also mentioned that additional stockyards would be established at other stations as per requirement to make sand available throughout the state. Each stockyard would have an electronic weighbridge, integrated with central server.

The waybill-cum-weighment slip from sand sold would be issued for transportation of sand which would have security features like bar codes, QR codes and would be stamped with date and time. To check any malpractice it would contain all the information like quantity sold, amount deposited with the corporation, truck number. Similar weighbridges would established at mine sites as well as desiltation sites for proper accounting of sand excavated and sold.

Local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, the chairman of the sub- committee on mining, had recently gone to Telangana to study the model. He had said that that after coming into existence in 2014, Telangana had a meagre Rs 10 crore income from mining but the state government formed a mining corporation which saw the income increasing to Rs 374 crore in 2015-16, Rs 419 crore in 2016-17 and now in 2017-18 to Rs 1,200 crore.

Similarly, Haryana, which is smaller than Punjab, is getting Rs 900 crore from mining. “If Telangana with just one river can generate such a huge revenue, one can well imagine the difference this policy can make to the economy of Punjab that has three rivers running through it and has a better quality of sand,” Sidhu had said.

The other members of the committee include finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal and rural development minister

Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa

.

Call a sand taxi

All vehicles used for the transportation of sand would be mandatorily registered on the government’s portal and would called sand taxies. The consumer would be able to hire these sand taxies online after paying freight charges at the rates fixed under the policy.

These vehicles would be made to carry the waybill-cum-weighment slips for transportation of sand and would be tracked through GPS/RFID tags. The vehicles carrying sand without proper weighment slip would be liable to be seized. The list of all the registered vehicles, along with their contact details, would be displayed for customers to place orders for transportation.