"SMALL concession holders in the world renowned "valley of rubies" in Mogok, Mandalay recently protested against unfair allocation of mines by the Myanmar government. Some 300 miners marched in the Kyat Pyin town urging fair allocation of gemstone mines, particularly to small block holders who are claiming discrimination as they are bound to be given unproductive mines according to The Myanmar Times. Gemstone miner U Zaw Win who led the protest said there is a need to put a better system of allocation to small block concession holders. "We are allocated places in remote areas, where there is little vacant land and no gems. There will be repercussions if Mogok locals are only assigned areas of little value,” he said. The concessions for small block holders stretches on an area measuring about 33,000 hectares in three zones while for medium scale holders, 6,500ha has been allocated, also in three zones. “The small block holder zones are far from town where there are no gems. They are very hard to excavate,” U Zaw Win said. He also claimed some of the concessions assigned to small miners in the border areas of Mandalay and Shan State are blocks that are avoided by locals like him because of problems like malaria. Sein Lan Mogok Environmental Conservation group secretary U Ye Aung said such mine operations was unproductive because miners would not be able to send daily wage earners to such remote locations. The Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation ministry recently set up a regional gem block allocation and screening group to allocate an acre of land for gem mining to local residents. Each concession is good for one year..."