KAKKANAD: The ban imposed on sand mining in the district will be relaxed from December 1. The decision in this regard was taken in a meeting held under the District Collector M G Rajamanickam at the Collectorate camp office on Sunday.
The District Collector convened a meeting after the government issued an order to all District Collectors for temporarily allowing sand mining.
According to the order, the District Collector will have the final say in the absence of sand audit report. The decision to relax the ban came after five months.
“People can apply for sand online, from all the Akshaya centres in the district and for that we will set as many as 12 distribution centres in the district,” said District Collector M G Rajamanickam.
In a novel attempt, the district administration will issue smart cards in order to curb the misuse of the government order.
“A swiping machine will be installed at all the sand ghats and the beneficiary will get an order on thermal papers for getting the sand from the ghats. As it is printed on thermal paper, no other person can misuse it as it will fade after 3-4 hours,” the District Collector said.
Meanwhile, the agency who are working on the sand audit report will get three months time to submit the report to the Centre of Earth and Studies.
The Tropical Institute of Environmental Studies and the Socio-Economic and Environmental Studies are the agencies conducting the sand audit reports.