Pics: Spoorthi Ullal

Daijiworld Media Network-Mangaluru (JD)

Mangaluru, Oct 27: “The union government is framing regulations for the offshore sand mining in the west coast of the country which will help the construction sector at large,” said M Raju, the director general of the Geological survey of India.

Addressing the media persons in the city as a part of his visit, he said, “The West coast is very rich in sand pockets while the east coast is rich in minerals. If we have to carry the offshore sand mining, we have to mine it beyond the CRZ zone. If we have to mine it in the CRZ zone then the union government has to relax few regulations. Even for the offshore non CRZ zone sand mining, the union government is yet to form the regulations. We have already identified the sand pockets to the union government and union government will take care of rest of the procedure.”

“Right now we have identified 4-5 sand pockets. The availability of sand in these is about 2000 million tonnes. This sand is of construction grade and will be beneficial if exploited.” he added.

When asked about the environmental hazards of deep sea sand mining, the deputy director V Devadas said, “Once we mine a pocket for few years, we have to keep that region untouched for five years so that it returns to its previous condition. Later we can go with the mining once again.”

“The sand mining has to be carried out after the sand pockets are auctioned by the respective states after being handed over by the union government.” he added.

Speaking about the availability of sand, he said, “We have already identified 2,797 sq km area off Kerala coast as the potential area of sand. The Kerala government has already requested the union government to felicitate the mining,” added the director general.