About Section
Mines and Minerals Section The district of Jalpaiguri has profuse amount of minor minerals, sand and gravels are among the important construction materials. Ensuring their availability in a sustainable manner is vital for the development of the infrastructure in the state. There are different sources of such minerals. The most important among them are the rivers of this district. The extraction of such minor minerals from the riverbeds has to be regulated and done with adoption of required environmental safeguards. As sand is the most exploited natural resource throughout the world in an unregulated manner as per the recently published report by the UNEP. The district is the lowest unit of field administration which is placed as the competent authority to adopt the appropriate environmental practices for extraction of these materials and monitor its extraction and movement as per Notification No. S.O. 141(E) dt. 15.01.2016 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change by forming District Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority and the District Level Expert Appraisal Committee. Therefore sustainable mineral exploration is the key objective of this department. Special emphasis is given on monitoring of the extracted material, which is key to the success of environment management plan. Consequently, District Level Task Force (DLTF) has been keeping strict vigil to curb illegal mining and overloading of minerals by conducting frequent raid.