Sand Mining Policy: 3 districts excluded

BANGALORE: Three coastal districts, including Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, would be excluded from the proposed new draft policy on sand mining which is expected to adopt by the state government, Minister for Higher Education Dr V S Acharya said.Addressing newsmen here on Thursday, Dr Acharya informed that the state government has formulated a draft sand mining policy on the line of that in Tamil Nadu.The minister, however, said that taking into consideration the distinct feature of the coastal region, where sand mining is being done in the riverside and near the mouth of the river.He said that a committee of deputy commissioners of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada would issue annual licenses for sand mining in the three districts to extract sand through manual labour in both offshore and five feet underwater in the river.While deployment of machinery would be banned for sand mining, it would be allowed for coarse sand mining, the minister said.He said that 25 per cent of the royalty collected from the sand miners would be remitted to the respective village panchayats to undertake repair works of village roads.The minister informed that while sand transport would be banned to Kerala from the coastal districts, Goa would be excluded from the ban order as there is a traditional practice to transport sand from Kali river to Goa right from the Portugese period, Dr Acharya said.