Improving Government Revenue in Mining Industry with Digitization

The estimated annual demand for sand for the building industry is around 7 million cubic metres in Sri Lanka [1]. Approximately 50% of the sand production in the country is done through illicit mining, thereby reducing government revenue by around 50% that is to be earned as sand royalties [2]. Without a clear system of collecting royalties and tracking dispatches, there are plenty of errors that arise, and it directly impacts government revenue declines. After attempting to locate illegal sand mining manually through the enforcement team, the Geological Survey & Mines Bureau (GSMB) finally introduced the Mining and Mineral Production (mmPro) monitoring solution to track and manage the sand production and transportation. The solution was deployed as a pilot operation at Manampitiya. By 13th March 2020, the revenue generated within twenty-four days was 4,405,190.40 rupees managed to track real-time. The country's mining industry can be regulated by reducing illicit mining, ensuring that the government revenue is increased via this strategy.