Drones can monitor illegal mining in leasehold sites: Madras high court
Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the state government to implement drone technology alone in order to determine the exact quantum of minerals quarried from the leasehold sites by way of detection through satellite.
A division bench comprising Justices M. Venugopal and S. Vaidyanathan gave the directive on a petition from V.B.R. Menon of Chennai, which sought a direction to the authorities to institute aerial surveys and drones in monitoring, control, exploration, estimation, quantification and valuation of mining and quarrying contracts and in all other allied activities under the Tamil Nadu Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 1959, as amended.
The bench said it was pointed out by the additional advocate general that the authorities have no hesitation to conduct unmanned aerial survey by using the drone technology as and when required. In fact, the state government had already introduced a more compatible technology than the drone survey to obtain particulars directly from the satellite, as the discretion is vested with the government in respect of usage of advanced technology, being developed by the Indian Bureau of Mines, namely, Mining Tenement System (MTS).
V.B.R. Menon, the petitioner-in-person has submitted that the use of other technologies other than drone would be helpful to the government only to detect and report the illegal mining activities, whereas, the drone technology is exclusively designed to calculate and access the volume and quantity of minerals being quarried from the leasehold areas. He has further submitted that introduction of the proposed mining surveillance system along with incorporation of drone technology would only be a remedial process for determination of quantity of minerals, being quarried from the mines, so as to monitor and prevent the large scale illegal mining activities in Tamil Nadu through various means, the bench added.
The bench said the petitioner further submitted that the feature of drone technology was that it can be used to monitor illegal mining activities, check for activity at night and to track illegal truck movements. He has further added that drones can also monitor whether reclamation has been done as committed, when a mine was closed and calculate the extent of the green cover, the bench added.
The bench said, “A reading of the earlier order of this court dated February 7, 2017, reveals that the said order was passed after accepting the contention of the petitioner that the drone technology is a must. Hence, the respondents (authorities) cannot now be permitted to take a different stand to contend that the proposed MTS in the place of drone technology would be introduced for survey of the illegal mining operations. The contention of the respondents that discretion is left with the government to use either MTS or drone technology, as and when required, cannot be countenanced by this court. Hence, this court directs the respondents to implement the drone technology alone to determine the exact quantum of minerals quarried from the leasehold sites by way of detection via satellite”.
