State's centralised auction system to check illegal sand mining

KOLKATA: The step of the Bengal government of introducing e-procurement of sand comes up as a crucial move in the country's history with its unique feature of transparent online set-up for excavation and sale of the building material at the right price maintaining 'a scientific, environmentally-sustainable and socially responsible' mechanism.

The state government has brought in a centralised auction system and supervision mechanism of sand excavation and sale with introduction of the new Sand Mining Policy that empowered the West Bengal Mineral Development and Trading Corporation as the monitoring authority.

Leaving no scope for any illegal mining of sand, the move would help in completely checking any sort of pilferage. According to a senior state government officer, the state government has been cracking down against illegal sand mining for the past few years and it had resulted in a hike in revenue generation out of it to Rs 300 crore from Rs 25 crore in 2015. "Now with the new system, the revenue is expected to increase manifold," the officer said.

Another senior state government officer said: "One just needs to log into a dedicated portal as they do for any other online shopping to place an order for sand." The buyers will also get the bifurcation of the total amount that he or she has to pay.

The Corporation has already floated sought expression of interest (EoI) for empanelment of operators for carrying out various activities related to the same.

The scientific approach of excavation will prevent damage to the riverine system, groundwater depletion and flood in the nearby area. Proper infrastructure including ramps and access roads to sand mines and stock yards will be developed.

District authorities have been directed to upload details of all existing and potential sand mines in the central portal. The sand mines will be divided into two categories depending on the area of one or more sand blocks.

Digital registers of daily excavation, transportation, loading, sale and stock availability of sand at the sand mine and stock-yards would be maintained besides bringing the areas under CCTV surveillance.

A board containing name and category of sand mine, area of the sand mine, total deposit of sand, name of the operator, name along with contact numbers of manager and supervisor and details of a contact person from the corporation would be displayed near sand mines and stockyards.

There will be colour-coding for GPS fitted vehicles used for transporting sand.