Panjim: With sand mining permits in the state likely to be issued soon, the government has amended the Goa Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 1985, for regulating extraction of sand. The amendments define traditional extractors, the process of granting permits and conditions of sand extraction in the riverbeds of the state.

 

According to the new Rules, permission for sand mining by manual means will henceforth be granted in the ratio of 70:30 between the applicants who are traditional extractors and the remaining applicants who are not. If the numbers of applications are more than the number of permits to be granted by the government, then the permits will be given in the same ratio on the basis of draw of lots.

 

The Rules state that extraction of sand shall not be carried out by the “licensee or any person on his behalf by using mechanical device”. Furthermore, no licensee shall extract sand beyond 1000m3 in a year from the zones demarcated by the government. The site of the zone will be inspected by designated officers of the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) through the environment department annually to verify the extent of sand extracted by the licensee.

 

Any licensee who has extracted sand beyond 1000m faces the penalty of getting the licence cancelled and debarred for a period of three years, the Rules say. The sand extractors are allowed to carry out extraction only between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. All sand removed will have to be stacked or stored close to the riverbank for ascertaining the quantity extracted and for calculating the levy of royalty.

 

The licensee will henceforth undertake adequate safety measures during the extraction process by providing required safety gadgets and healthcare facilities to the workers engaged in sand mining.

 

The Rules say that a ‘traditional sand extractor’ means a person who belongs to the local community and whose livelihood is solely dependent on extraction of sand by manual means. To prove their identity as traditional extractors an affidavit signed by the executive magistrate or a notary is needed.

 

The government will grant sand mining permits to a person who is born in Goa, and whose either of parents or grandparents is born in the state as well as residing for a period of at least 15 years. The directorate of mines and geology (DMG) has proposed to start issuing permits for sand mining in the Chapora river. Permits for extraction in the Mandovi and Zuari rivers are also in the pipeline as an NIO study for sand mining capacity of the two rivers was submitted on November 17. It is pertinent to note that the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change recently revised the CRZ Notification 2019.

 

It allowed the manual removal of sandbars that occur naturally. “The sand bars in the intertidal areas shall be removed by traditional coastal communities only through non-mechanised manual methods. The state government may permit such removal of sand in a specific time period and quantity subject to conditions such as registration of local community persons permitted to remove the sand manually and shall be removed on a yearly basis,” said the notification, paving the way for issue of sand mining permits by the DMG.