K. Jayaprakash Hegde, former MP and Bharatiya Janata Party leader, said on Saturday that the district administration should issue permits for sand extraction in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) areas in Udupi district to 169 original permit holders.
Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Hegde said that it was surprising how the district administration had called for new applications for sand extraction in CRZ areas. Permission can be given to the new applicants only if they fulfilled all conditions laid down by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.
The district administration should think over this issue. Not following all norms might compel some applicants to approach courts, which might again result in stoppage of sand extraction.
The State government announced a separate policy for sand extraction in non-CRZ areas of the three coastal districts. Instead of taking two years to arrive at this decision, it could have done so much earlier and this would have avoided hardship for the common man, Mr. Hegde said.
Raghupathi Bhat, former MLA, said that when the BJP held a dharna demanding resolution of sand extraction issue a week back, the district administration assured to clear the applications of all 169 original permit holders at its meeting on September 2.
But so far, only about 50 applications for sand extraction in CRZ areas had been cleared. The administration must expedite the process of clearing the applications, he said.
Mattar Ratnakar Hegde, president of the district unit of BJP, said that it was on account of the dharna staged by the BJP a week ago that 90% of sand extraction problems had been solved in the district. Sand was earlier available at ₹14,000 per truckload but now it is around ₹6,000 per truckload, he said.