New guidelines for sand mining in river beds in Gujarat

New guidelines for sand mining in river beds in Gujarat
Himanshu Bhatt, TNN Jan 24, 2013, 02.50PM IST

SURAT: New guidelines for sand mining activity in river beds of the state are issued by the committee of additional secretary of forest and environment department of the state.

Under the new guidelines, contractors won't be able to mine sand from the river beds after 6.00PM in the evening to 6.00AM in the morning. All the mining activities will have to be carried out during 12 hour period in the day.


Following a writ in the Gujarat High court and courts directive this committee was formed and committee has put restrictions on those contractors and lease holders who were mining sands 24 hours a day .

Under the new guidelines, it is also made clear that mining in the river bed could go up to 3 meter deep in the river bed and lease holders will not be able to mine sand in 500 meter area of the irrigation projects and bridges .

Lease holders will not be able to mine sand in 10 meters area from the bank of the river and will be punished if they are found to be mining more quantity of sand then the specified.

JP Shivhare , district collector, said, " We have given instructions to officers in filed to see that all lease holders follow the new guidelines and those found violating will be severely punished."

It is expected that large scale illegal sand mining taking place in Tapi river bed under the guise of lease will come to a halt if these new guidelines are implemented properly.

I hope this will help check the illegal sandmining a bit. However, implementation often remains the weakpoint. We are virtually killing our rivers by the sandmining. Hope our rivers get some respite.