AP, Telangana under Mining Surveillance System

AP, Telangana under Mining Surveillance System
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Highlights

Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal launched the Mining Surveillance System (MSS) in New Delhi on Saturday. 

New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal launched the Mining Surveillance System (MSS) in New Delhi on Saturday.

This Surveillance System includes the two Telugu states of AP and Telangana. Apart from this, Telangana has been selected along with Haryana and Chhattisgarh for a pilot launch of a similar programme to keep a watch on minor minerals.

MSS is a satellite-based monitoring system, which aims to establish a regime of responsive mineral administration, through public participation, by curbing instances of illegal mining activity through automatic remote sensing detection technology.

Ministry of Mines, through Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), has developed the MSS, in coordination with Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG), Gandhinagar and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), to use space technology for curbing illegal mining activity in the country.

Developed under the Digital India Programme, MSS is one of the first such surveillance systems developed in the world using space technology. The current system of monitoring of illegal mining activity is based on local complaints and unconfirmed information. There is no robust mechanism to monitor the action taken on such complaints.

Following Prime Minister’s advice, the maps of the mining leases have been geo-referenced. The geo-referenced mining leases are superimposed on the latest satellite remote sensing scenes obtained from CARTOSAT & USGS. The system checks a region of 500 meters around the existing mining lease boundary to search for any unusual activity which is likely to be illegal mining. Any discrepancy if found is flagged-off as a trigger.

There are in total 3843 mining leases of major minerals in India. Out of which, there are 1710 working mines and 2133 non-working mines. Most of the working mines have been digitized. Efforts for completing the digitisation of non-working mines are being made through the State governments, which would be completed in 3 months time.

In the initial phase, a total of 296 triggers have been generated in the MSS software across the States which covers a total area of 3994.87 hectares under the system.

State-wise data for successful triggers can be summarised as Madhya Pradesh (46), Goa (42), Karnataka (35), Gujarat (32), Andhra Pradesh & Tamil Nadu (29 each), Rajasthan (23), Odisha (20), Himachal Pradesh (11), Maharashtra (8), Meghalaya (7), Chhattisgarh & Telangana (6 each) and Jharkhand (2).

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