Kochi: The mining department’s ambitious plan to introduce e-passes for the transport of minor minerals including sand and granite has made a major step, though delayed, with the demonstration site getting ready for uploading this week.
“The demo site is ready for launch after we made the changes and corrections suggested by the Directorate of Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC),” said sources associated with the project. “We plan to upload the site this week.”
The demo site will be used for educating the industry players and the public about the ways to use it. The traders will be able to enrol their names and vehicles on the site which the public would be able to access.
The demo site will not, however, have the details of the licensed quarries which will be a major feature of the final site.
“Further changes will be made after studying the response from the public and the licencees,” the sources said. “It will also have to undergo functionality tests before we upload the final site.”
The department had started working on e-passes as part of the e-governance programme to eliminate charges of widespread corruption with the paper passes which are in vogue now.
The licencees would use the paper passes, which have no official entries on them, to transport sand and granite several times, resulting in the loss of revenue to the exchequer as well as uncontrolled exploitation of the natural resources.
The e-passes would ensure that each pass would have the name of the licencee, the date, time, and points of transport. The department had planned to launch the project on May 1.
