Quarries to be fully operational by Monday: Sukhbir Badal

With a view to drastically reduce the prices of sand in the state, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today said six quarries would become operational by Monday.
"Five quarries out of 11 had been commissioned earlier and now six more would become operational by Monday. Besides this, 29 more mines will be made functional by February 7 after getting environment clearances from Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in the next week," he said, according to an official release here.
While presiding over a high level meeting, Deputy CM reviewed the mining and provisioning of sand and gravel on subsidised rates.

He said Punjab had received clearances from MoEF for 11 quarries out of which 5 mines at Sangera (Moga), Pawat and Kumkalan (Ludhiana), Digana Khurd (Hoshiarpur) and Burj Tehal Das (SBS Nagar) were already functional.
Badal asked the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC) to operate six new quarries by Monday including Adranman and Bassian (Moga), Gujjarwal Bet, Mand Chaunta and Miana (Ludhiana) and Jhugian Maha Singh in Jalandhar district.
Reviewing the availability of mining material, the deputy CM said environment clearances for 29 quarries were in pipeline with MoEF and were likely to get green signal within week and be fully operational by February 7 for the facilitation of general public to purchase sand and gravel.

Badal also said "quarrying of sand and bajri (gravel) should be accelerated to increase the supply in the market and bring the price to a very reasonable level."

He also said Punjab government was committed to provide sand and gravel at reasonable rates to the people of state.
"That's why the state has put an embargo on ferrying of sand and gravel out of state and it would be taxed as royalty," he said.
He asked the Industry Department to issue necessary instructions in this regard to all concerned authorities to implement the decision of State at ground level.
Badal said the timing of mining will remain from 8 am to 8 pm only.

He asked the PSIEC to install CCTV cameras on all pitheads in two weeks so that transparency level in mining could be enhanced.
Taking serious note of illegal mining and unauthorised ferrying of sand and gravel, three mining zones have been formed in different parts of Punjab, which would be supervised and monitored by three retired officers of Indian Army in the rank of Generals.
He said these officers would report to Punjab Government for further necessary action.
Sukhbir Badal said that four police officials at each district and three DSPs with one SP at headquarters Chandigarh had already been deployed to assist the mining officers.