Assam move to ease sand, stone shortage

The Assam forest department will increase the number of sand and stone mahals (officially designated extraction sites) along with their extraction capacities to meet the demand of the construction sector. Scarcity of sand and stone chips has been a major cause of concern for the state's construction sector for long. Forest minister ParimalSuklabaidya met senior officials of various departments here on Sunday and discussed how to tide over the crisis and bring transparency to the revenue collection system. The meeting also decided to make the bidding and revenue collection process of all sand and stone mahals online and to amend the Assam Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 2013. "Earlier, there was a certain limit on extraction from mahals. We will raise the limit. This will lead to an increase in revenue generation for mahals as well as the government. For the past couple of months, we have been also working on creating new mahals," Suklabaidya said after the meeting.