CUTTACK : The Orissa High Court on Tuesday clamped a statewide ban on transportation of sand between 7 am and 9 pm from river beds. The ban was necessary for the safety of schoolgoing children and general public, it ruled.
The restriction was imposed while disposing of the PIL in which the court had on January 10 issued an interim stay order on the notification of guidelines for regulating sand quarrying in the state by the Steel and Mines department on December 21, 2023.
The petitioner Prasanta Kumar Das had sought intervention against illegal sand mining in mechanised manner on the river bed of Kathajodi near Cuttack. The authorities had allowed. mechanised mining of sand by use of excavators on the basis of provision in serial 19 of the guideline, it was alleged.
“The division bench of Acting Chief Justice BR Sarangi and Justice MS Raman allowed the operation of guidelines issued in the December 21, 2023 notification, but only prospectively,” petitioner counsel Sukant Kumar Dalai said.
However, the bench clarified that mechanised mining of sand should be allowed only in exceptional cases on the basis of serial 19 of the guideline which prescribed standard environmental condition for sand mining, he said.
The serial number 19 in the guideline said, “Depending upon the location, thickness of sand, deposition, agricultural land/river bed, the method of mining may be manual, semi-mechanised or mechanised; however, manual method of mining shall be preferred over any other method.”
The bench clarified that granting of permission for mechanised extraction of sand in a river bed to a lessee shall be subject to environmental clearance from the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) keeping in view the condition of river bed where manual extraction is not possible, Dalai said.
The court also emphasised on the need for preservation of sand for future generation, he added.