THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An amendment to the Kerala Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 2015, is on the anvil as its selective generosity to quarry operators is leading to the over-exploitation of natural resources in the state. The KMMC Rules limit the amount of minerals that can be extracted from areas less than 98 cents. But for areas larger than that, there is no such limit.
Further, the original 1967 Rules stated that a quarrying permit is a short term permit to extract and remove minor minerals not exceeding 10,000 metric tonnes under one permit. But the 2015 Rules has taken out the limit prescribed. Under the 1967 Rules, there was a limit on issuance of mineral transit passes with respect to area of excavation under Consolidated Royalty Payment System (CRPS) for laterite building stones (LBS) and granite building stones (GBS).
“When the Rules were revised in 2015, the limit for quarrying permit under the CRP system for both laterite and granite building stones was restricted to a maximum of 5,000 mineral transit passes up to an area of 98.8 cents at the rate of Rs 100 per mineral transit pass. However, no such restriction was surprisingly fixed for areas above 98 cents,” a top Mining and Geology Department official said. As a result, permit holders who have at their command over 98 cents or more could obtain unlimited number of passes on payment of a consolidated royalty of rupees Rs 7 lakh without restriction on the quantity extracted.
“Apart from the uncontrolled extraction of minerals, this has also led to loss of revenue for the state,” the official said. Take for instance a case in Thrissur where 9,000 passes were issued to a person for quarrying nearly one acre of land in Mulayam village on payment of a consolidated royalty of Rs 7 lakh. If the person was charged Rs 100 per permit, as others with lesser extent of land are, the state could have secured Rs 9 lakh.
In another case, a person was granted 11,000 mineral transit passes to mine 1.19 acres in Pathanamthitta. The permit holder just paid the consolidated royalty of Rs 7 lakh when the state shoudlhave actually got Rs 11 lakh.
