Udupi: Sand stir withdrawn based on minister's promise on agitators' demands

Udupi, 30 Jan 2019 [Fik/News Sources]: Sand is being extracted in coastal region in traditional manner. Therefore,   a number of rules and conditions which are applicable for other districts do not hold good here. Therefore, we will discuss the possibility of drafting separate sand policy for coastal districts in the cabinet sub-committee meeting," said state mines and geology minister, Rajashekhar Patil.

The minister was speaking at the progress review meeting of his department convened in the office of the deputy commissioner here on Tuesday January 29. He sought submission of a proposal supporting separate sand policy containing details about the points and issues which are sought to be included there.

It was decided to issue permission on experimental basis to extract sand from 23 non-CRZ blocks to PWD, Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd, and other government agencies and also to two gram panchayats under whose jurisdiction these sand blocks are located.

Speaking to media persons, the minister said that Karnataka Coastal Zone Management Project's clearance has been obtained for five out of 30 sand blocks located within CRZ areas, and that permission would be obtained for eight more within a week. Therefore, the total availability of sand would be about 13 lac metric tonnes. Different departments of the government have been allowed to extract sand from non-CRZ areas, he explained.

Leader of the opposition in legislative council, Kota Srinivas Poojary, chief whip of the opposition in the assembly, V Sunil Kumar, MP, Shboha Karandlaje, MLAs, Raghupati Bhat, Lalaji Mendon, Halady Srinvas Shetty and B K Sukumar Shetty, Zilla panchayat president, Dinakar Babu, vice president, Sheela K Shetty, district in-charge secretary, M Maheshwar Rao, secretary in geology department, Rajendra Kataria, director, Prasanna Kumar, deputy commissioner, Priyanka Mary Francis, zilla panchayat chief executive officer, Sindhu B Rupesh, district superintendent of police, Laxman Nimbargi, additional deputy commissioner, Vidya Kumari, and several other officials were present. 

Before the meeting, the minister addressed the sand protesters. Later, MLA, K Raghupati Bhat, clarified that the protesters had demanded to provide permission to all the 171 contractors to remove sand but the district administration had suspended licences of 79 among them for violation of rules. "The violations were not of serious nature that would have been tantamount to illegal sand extraction. They were only GPS rule violations. The minster has promised to provide for extraction of sand by all the contractors by revoking the suspensions. He also has agreed to our demand to consider the entire district as a cluster. In view of his promise, we have withdrawn our protest," he explained.

Mangaluru: The minister also held district progress review meeting at Mangaluru. He directed the officials of his department to permit sand extraction in non-CRZ areas in the district. Deputy commissioner, Sasikanth Senthil, and other officials were present.