234 mines to be fully operational within two months-Sukhbir Badal

Chandigarh, March 5, 2015: In order to ensure further rationalisation in price of sand in Punjab, Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal today issued instructions to operationalise 35 more quarries within 15 days and announced that 234 quarries will be made fully functional within next two months in order to provide ample quantity of subsidized sand to the people.

 

Presiding over a meeting accompanied by Agricultural Minister Jathedar Tota Singh, Industry Minister Madan Mohan Mittal, Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal and Advocate General Ashok Aggarwal, Deputy CM while reviewing the provisioning of sand and gravel on subsidised rates, said Punjab had received environment clearances from Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for 35 quarries out of which 19 were mechanical mines covering more than 100 acres area each. "These mechanical mines will cut the difference between demand and supply of sand and further lower sand prices in the state", he stressed.

 

It is mentioned here that 40 quarries out of total 371, had been commissioned earlier and rest would be made functional in coming months after getting environment clearances from MoEF.

 

Informing the Deputy CM on availability of sand and gravel, B. Purushartha secretary mining said environment clearances for 234 quarries were in pipeline with MoEF and were likely to get the green signal soon. He assured that these quarries would be made fully operational in next two months to provide sand and gravel on reasonable rates.

 

Badal directed the department that quarrying of sand and bajri should be accelerated to increase supply in the market so that prices could come down considerably. Mr. Badal also asked Chief Secretary to issue instructions to all SDMs to submit daily reports on mining in their areas besides making sure that general public could get sand and gravel in hassle free manner at competitive rates.

 

Deputy CM said he would personally monitor the availability of mining material to the general public and review the position after two weeks.

 

Prominent amongst others present in the meeting included Principal Secretary Industries D.P. Reddy, Principal Secretary to Deputy CM P.S. Aujla, Secretary Mandi Board Deepinder Singh, Secretary Mining B. Purushartha and Special Principal Secretary to Deputy CM Manvesh Singh Sidhu.