Separate sand policy for coastal districts assures minister

Udupi: ” The government was contemplating to have a separate sand policy for the coastal districts. Sand is being extracted in coastal region in traditional manner. Therefore,   a number of rules and conditions which are applicable for other districts do not hold good here,” said state mines and geology minister Rajashekhar Patil speaking at the progress review meeting of his department convened in the office of the deputy commissioner here on Tuesday January 29.

Mr Patil stated that a proposal in support of a separate sand policy for the two districts should be submitted to the government. Decision was taken to give permission for sand mining on experimental basis from 23 non-CRZ blocks by PWD, Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd, other government agencies and to two gram panchayats under whose jurisdiction these sand blocks are located.

Karnataka Coastal Zone Management Project’s clearance has been obtained for five out of 30 sand blocks located within CRZ areas, and that permission would be obtained for eight more within a week, said the minister.

The total availability of sand would be about 13 lakh metric tonnes and different government departments have been allowed to extract sand from non-CRZ areas, said Mr Paitl.

Prior to the meeting the minister spoke with the sand protestors. Following the minister’s assurances, the protestors decided to withdraw their protest. MLA K Raghupati Bhat who met the minister later explained,” The minster has promised to provide for extraction of sand by all the contractors by revoking the suspensions. He also has agreed to our demand to consider the entire district as a cluster. In view of his promise, we have withdrawn our protest,” he said.

Deputy Commissioner Priyanka Mary Francis, SP Lakshman Nimbargi, Additional DC Vidya Kumari, ZP CEO Sindhu  B Roopesh, MLAs V Sunil Kumar, Raghupathi Bhat, Lalaji Mendon, Halady Srinivas Shetty, B K Sukumar Shetty, MP Shobha Karandlaje and others attended the meeting.