Separate directorate for minor minerals on the anvil

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Bhubaneswar: The state government has in-principle decided to create a separate directorate for minor minerals like sand and stone in a bid to curb illegal lifting and theft.
The state Cabinet has approved the proposal for formation of the Directorate of Minor Minerals during its last meeting, said official sources here, Saturday.
Minor minerals like sand, ballasts, chips, bajiri, gravel of ordinary stones, river shingles, pebbles and rock fines generated from stone crushers will come under the control of the directorate.
The directorate will be set up under the administrative control of Revenue and Disaster Management department. The proposed agency will take steps to implement various technological interventions such as digitisation of all minor mineral sources, online work flow based management of the resources and enforcement activities.
The director will put in place a robust monitoring mechanism (i4MS) using technology to prevent illegal lifting and theft of minor minerals.
Apart from monitoring the implementation of environment protection laws during the mining of such minerals, the directorate would identify potential minor mineral sources so that it can augment collection of mining revenue, they said.