Varied Measures to Curb Illegal Mining

Under Section 23C of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, state governments were empowered to make legislation to curb the illegal mining, transportation and storage of and related purposes illegally mined minerals . To date, 21 state governments have established regulations under section 23C of the MMDR Act, 1957 to curb illegal mining. As a result, state governments are delegated to issues related to illegal mining.

However, based on the quarterly reports submitted by the state governments on illegal mining to the Indian Bureau of Mines (a subordinate office under the administrative control of the Ministry of Mines), the number of illegal mining cases identified/reported by the Government of Telangana and the subsequent actions taken in the last five years is provided in the annex.

The Ministry of Mines, through the Indian Bureau of Mines, has developed the Mining Surveillance System (MSS) to use space technology to report any illegal mining activity to the relevant state government to take further necessary action. MSS uses time-series satellite imagery data made available by Bhaskaracarya National Institute for Space Technology and Geo-informatics (BISAG-N), Gandhi Nagar to detect illegal mining beyond the lease boundaries.

Annex

(The number of illegal mining incidents identified/reported by the Telangana Government in its quarterly Illegal Mining filings to IBM)

This information was provided today by the Union Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Pralhad Joshi, in a written response to the Lok Sabha.

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FROM/RKP