Bhubaneswar: The chief secretary, Asit Tripathy, has set a target of Rs1,000 crore revenue from minor minerals this fiscal.
While chairing a review meeting on streamlining the minor minerals, here on Friday, the chief secretary directed the revenue and disaster management department to identify and operationalize the new sairat sources for filling the gap between ‘demand and supply’ of minor minerals.
Tripathy said,” Enhancement of legally operational sources will have triple benefit of ensuring supply of material for construction sector which is quite labour intensive, containing the theft of minor minerals and increasing the collection of revenue”.
Principal secretary revenue & disaster management Bishnupada Sethi appraised that as per earlier decisions of government, the Directorate of Minor Minerals have been made functional within a very short period of time. Within last couple of months 1129 new sairat sources have been identified in different districts. With this, the total number of minor mineral sairats have increased to 4965.
Chief secretary directed to identify sand rich river beds on banks of the major rivers like Mahanadi, Baitarani, Bramhani, Rusikulya, Subarnarekha in cooperation with the department of Water Resources, Forest & Environment; and, prepare scientific plans for sand mining.
It was decided to allow inter-state transportation of sands through competitive bidding process. Tripathy further directed to strengthen the enforcement activities for checking the theft of minor minerals. The collectors and Police Superintendents were directed to utilize the services of Odisha Industrial Security Force (OISF) and sharpen the squad activities for containment of illegal lifting of the minerals.
Director Minor Minerals Bubhuti Bhusan Das appraised that revenue to the tune of around Rs.37.11 crore has been collected during the months of April and May this fiscal from minor minerals. The process for preparation of mining plan, availing of environmental clearance and timely completion of bidding process for another 1469 sairats have been brought to an advanced stage.
Available data show, in the first phase, ten sections of OISF have been provided for 10 locations under 8 important districts from the view points of minor minerals. The forces will be utilized in squads for prevention and apprehending of the illegal minors and transporters. The approved locations for deployment OISF include Cuttack Sadar, Baranga, Jaleswar, Anandapur, Chhtrapur, Bhanjanagar, Dharmasala, Tangi and Ranapur. Besides, one section has been deployed for Jharsuguda, Lakahanpur, Brajarajnagar on rotation basis.
Development commissioner Suresh Chnadra Mohapatra, additional chief secretary steel & mines Raj Kumar Sharma, principal secretary finance Ashok Meena, and CMD IDCO Sanjay Kumar Singh participated in the deliberations.
