The Genesis of the District Survey Report

Environmental regulation of minor mineral mining in India evolved not through a single coherent framework, but through incremental judicial and executive responses to visible regulatory failures. Early Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regimes failed to account for the cumulative ecological damage caused by fragmented mining of minor minerals, particularly sand mining in riverine systems. Judicial intervention in Deepak Kumar v. State of Haryana triggered a paradigm shift by mandating prior environmental clearance even for small mining leases and laying the foundation for District Survey Reports (DSRs). This article traces the evolution of DSRs as a central instrument of environmental governance, examining how courts and regulators transformed them into a mandatory, science-based precondition for sustainable minor mineral mining in India