National Policy on Sand as a Resource for the Construction Industry.

The Policy considers the importance of sand in minimizing the risk of flooding and saltwater intrusion and the risk of habitat alteration and water quality loss in rivers. The Policy objectives are minimizing the environmental impacts of utilizing Sri Lanka's sand resources by taking precautionary measures; wise management of sand resources; and establish the priority of environmental considerations over the commercial consideration. The Policy determines mining of shore sand and mechanized sand mining in the riverbed as prohibited activities. The Policy further nominates the activities with conditional permits and activities to be promoted. In Section 4 the Policy outlines procedures for sand resource management such as preparing information, maps and amount of sand of suitable locations in rivers. The text further refers to establishment of a fund for gathering the revenue of sand extraction and outlines the mode on spend of the fund for the environmental restoration purposes. The text consists of 6 Parts and has one attachment.