In a knee-jerk reaction to illegal sand mining from river Narmada and allegation against his family, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday declared a blanket ban on sand mining from the river.
Shivraj Singh has been repeatedly facing criticism from the central zone of National Green Tribunal (NGT), opposition Congress and even leaders of his own party. Overloaded trucks, belonging to nephews and relatives of chief minister, were nabbed by the mining department while carrying sand.
The sand carrying trucks, belonging to CM's relatives, were confiscated
On May 15, on the conclusion of the five-month long Narmada Yatra conducted by Shivraj Singh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, "We have exploited river Narmada for ages, now the time has come to return". Prime Minister also unveiled the Narmada action plan to conserve the river.
During the yatra, former Union minister and BJP member of parliament from Damoh in MP, Prahlad Patel, too, had asked the chief minister, through a series of tweets, to stop illegal mining of sand from Narmada. Another BJP leader and a former cabinet colleague Kamal Patel, too, had threatened to approach NGT if the illegal mining did not stop in his district of Harda.
Having failed to curb the menace of illegal sand mining which was harming the ecosystem of river Narmada, Shivraj Singh announced the ban in a hurriedly called press conference. During his Narmada Yatra, the CM had repeatedly told the public in his speeches that he will not allow greedy people to plunder Narmada. He had even brought a resolution in state assembly to declare Narmada a living entity.
To show that he was serious about what he said in his speeches, he announced the decision to ban sand mining. He said, "The ban on sand mining in river Narmada will continue till a committee of experts submits its report on scientific mining in the river bed."
He said a committee has been formed under the chairmanship of Mineral Resources, Commerce and Industry minister Rajendra Shukla. It will have experts from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Kharagpur), who will suggest measures for scientific mining from river. Once the report is submitted, a blueprint for mining will be released. After that the government will decide whether the ban has to be lifted or not, the CM informed.
The committee has been asked by the government to guide and suggest how scientific sand mining in the river can be done without compromising the river’s flow and its biodiversity. Meanwhile, in order to meet the growing demand of sand for the construction work, chief minister has asked to ramp up the production of sand by stone crushing units. He said the stone crushing units will be rendered incentive of zero royalty in the first three years.
