Tewari for mandatory panchayat approval for sand mining

Chandigarh, December 13, 2023: Senior Congress leader and Shri Anandpur Sahib MP, Manish Tewari today suggested that the prior approval of the village panchayats must be made mandatory for giving clearance for sand mining.

Raising the question in the Lok Sabha today, Tewari said, although the Miner Mineral Development Act, under which sand mining comes, is regulated by the state governments, two union ministries, that of the environment and the mining had issued guidelines in 2017 for ‘Sustainable Sand Mining Guidelines’.  According to these guidelines, he added, clearance for sand mining is given by the District Environmental Impact Assessment Committee.

He suggested that since it is the concerned villages from where the sand is extracted which are affected badly in multiple ways, their approval should be made mandatory for allowing the mining in the respective areas.

Tewari pointed out that sand mining leads to multiple environmental and infrastructure hazards and damage to the local villages, particularly the roads.

Replying to the question, the union Minister for Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs, Prahlad Joshi assured Tewari that the guidelines will be reviewed for making the approval of the local panchayats mandatory for mining clearance.