Abstract:
Demand for sand is ever increasing, as enormous construction projects are initiated in the
country’s suburbs. Mining sand and all other construction raw materials have to be
increased to extreme levels to match the demand. But, the raw materials for constructions,
mainly sand, are natural resources that cannot be renewed and regeneration of those
natural resources need millions of years. Hence, the sustainability in mining sand and
related raw materials are in a critical stage, if extraction happens in an ill-monitored
manner; natural hazards will occur. Therefore, the governing body, Geological Survey,
and Mines Bureau (GSMB) took initiatives to introduce mining licenses, so the
authorities (the Police) can identify the illegal miners of raw materials. Starting from
2017, a sudden drop can be observed in the sand extracted from sources tracked at
GSMB. When the analysis was carried out to determine the theoretical sand consumption
in Sri Lanka using sand to cement ratio, the consumption during the 2017 and after are
69% more than the supply permitted from GSMB. This means that the only possible way
of supplying the demand is to use illegal means in sand mining and transporting, which is
thereby untraceable to GSMB. Furthermore, when identifying the factors which trigger
this cause, it was determined that the current licensing process is cumbersome. The
sudden shutdown at mining sites due to legal cases and civil unrest also increased illegal
sand mining. The miners had a demotivation on pricing the sand market value above
reasons, political intervention in the industry, and rise of the royalty charges and thereby
used illegal means to extract and mine sand. As per this study, it could be concluded to
have a scheme of interrelated concepts that aided using ICT so that GSMB can regain the
total control of mining and transportation and eliminate illegal sand mining, thereby
meeting the supply to the national demand without compromising the nature.
Keywords: E-licensing, Environment protection, Information Communication
Technology, Illegal mining, Sustainable governance
