ORDERS SPECIAL MULTI-DEPARTMENT JOINT TEAMS TO CHECK SUCH ACTIVITIES<\/p>\n
Chandigarh,<\/p>\n
In a move to crack down on illegal mining and tax evasion by miners, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday ordered the setting up of<\/p>\n
special multi-department joint teams, headed by the respective Deputy Commissioners, in all the districts of the state.<\/p>\n
The teams would comprise officials from taxation, mining, revenue and police departments, an official spokesperson disclosed, adding that they would be<\/p>\n
mandated to set up nakas to check illegal mining and evasion of taxes.<\/p>\n
Taking a serious view of the problem of illegal mining, Captain Amarinder made it clear that offenders would not be spared at any cost. Illegal mining and tax<\/p>\n
evasion had led to heavy losses for the state exchequer and needed to be checked on priority, said the Chief Minister, adding that the state could not afford any<\/p>\n
more financial losses.<\/p>\n
The Chief Minister further warned that no political interference would be tolerated in the matter and instructed officials to initiate the crackdown on priority, without<\/p>\n
delay.<\/p>\n
The Chief Minister also directed increased vigil on stone crushers, which are located in the three districts of Rupnagar, SAS Nagar and Pathankot, said the<\/p>\n
spokesperson after a review of the Mining Department during a meeting of the Sub-Committee on Finance.<\/p>\n
To streamline the functioning of the Mining Department, and make it more effective, the meeting also held tentative discussions on a proposal to set up a new<\/p>\n
mining department, with manpower to be drawn in from various related departments.<\/p>\n
Apprising the meeting of details of revenue generation from the mining business this financial year, the Department revealed that with two more auctions<\/p>\n
scheduled in this fiscal (on February 19 and March 15), the total revenue generation in 2017-18 would increase many fold. It is further estimated that the<\/p>\n
revenue generation from mining would triple next year.<\/p>\n
The mines to be auctioned on February 19 include 48 sand mines (1.64 crore tonnes) and three gravel (0.2 crore tonnes), while the March 15 auctions will have<\/p>\n
145 mines (2.7 crore tonnes) of sand and 18 mines (0.2 crore tonnes) of gravel being open to bidding.<\/p>\n
Department officials further informed the meeting that as many as 34 of the mines auctioned so far (spread over 329 hectares) had not yet become operational.<\/p>\n
Once production in these begins, the revenue generation would be further augmented, they said, adding that earnings could go up to Rs 600-800 crore with just<\/p>\n
10% increasing in mining production.<\/p>\n
The Chief Minister directed steps to ensure immediate operationalization of auctioned mines, and also to initiate wide publicity and confidence-building<\/p>\n
measures for the forthcoming auctions.<\/p>\n
The need for identification of more gravel mines was also discussed to plug the demand-supply gap. The total demand for gravel stands at 2.4 crore tonnes, of<\/p>\n
which only 16% is currently being met from official supply, while for sand, 35% of the 1.6 crore tonnes demand is similarly being fulfilled. The total demand in<\/p>\n
the state has been calculated at 4 crore tonnes on a conservative side, according to the Mining Department.<\/p>\n
Prominent amongst others who were attended the meeting included Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra, Finance Minister Manpreet Singh<\/p>\n
Badal, Media Advisor to CM Raveen Thukral, Financial Advisor to CM VK Garg, Chairman Governance and Ethics Commission K R Lakhanpal, Chief Secretary<\/p>\n
Karan Avtar Singh, Principal Secretary Finance Anirudh Tiwari, Principal Secretary to CM Tejveer Singh and Principal Secretary Industries and Commerce<\/p>\n
Rakesh Verma.<\/p>\n
——————————-
\nPunjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh chairing the meeting of the cabinet sub committee on Fiscal Management on Monday. Besides Health Minister<\/p>\n
Brahm Mahindra and Finance Minister, Manpreet Badal, the meeting was attended by senior officials of the Punjab government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ORDERS SPECIAL MULTI-DEPARTMENT JOINT TEAMS TO CHECK SUCH ACTIVITIES Chandigarh, In a move to crack down on illegal mining and tax evasion by miners, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday ordered the setting up of special multi-department joint teams, headed by the respective Deputy Commissioners, in all the districts of the state. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-punjab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20952,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950\/revisions\/20952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}