Centre urged to reimpose ban on private mining of beach sands

EAS Sarma, former Secretary to the Central government, has appealed to the Centre to halt the Andhra Pradesh government, lacking expertise and infrastructure in beach sand mining, from engaging private companies in this endeavor.

Visakhapatnam: Former Secretary to the Central government EAS Sarma has urged the Centre to prevent the Andhra Pradesh government which has no facility and experience to mine beach sands, from taking up beach sand mining and involving private companies and also revoke amendment of Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act (MMDRA) to reimpose a ban on private beach sand mining.

In letters addressed to the Secretary of Department of Atomic Energy Ajit Kumar Mohanty and Secretary of Department of Mines V.L. Kantha Rao here on Monday, he noted that the recent decision taken by the Centre to amend MMDRA to allow private mining in beach sands is against the national interest, as beach sands contain strategic minerals such as Monazite, Titanium, etc. which need to be conserved and put to prudent domestic use.

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Once private companies step in, driven by their profit motive, they would not only over exploit those minerals but also export them to the detriment of the public interest, he felt.”Keeping this in view, MoM and DAE banned private mining of beach sands i n March 2019, but apparently yielding to pressure from big businesses who fund political parties, you were forced to revoke the ban against all sane advice.

In my view, MoM and DAE, in view of the national interest involved, should go back to the political executive and advise it to revoke the amendment,” Dr. Sarma wrote.

Observing that beach sands contain monazite which is the raw material for thorium, the primary fuel for the third stage of India’s nuclear development programme, as originally visualised by Home J Bhabha, the architect of India’s atomic energy programme duly endorsed by the then Prime Minister Nehru, he said that the latter rightly banned private beach sand mining.

Dr. Sarma said that once private miners were allowed to mine beach sands, in the absence of testing facilities at ports to detect monazite, it would be easily smuggled out as it happened earlier, which would adversely impact the indigenous nuclear energy development programme of DAE.