Chennai | June 22, 2017: A dream home is proving to be dearer as sand prices continue to burn a hole in the pockets of people building independent houses in the city. The government's efforts to control prices, by opening 30 quarries across the state, is proving to be futile because of a gross mismatch between demand and supply. Around 300 cubic feet of sand, mined at a cost of Rs1,600 is being sold at Rs40,000 in the market. Against the average daily demand of 35,000 loads in Tamil Nadu, hardly 6,000 loads are available leading to spike in sand rates.

The cost of the key construction material has not seen any dip since April this year. Tamil Nadu State Sand Lorry Owner's Federation president S Yuvaraj said one load of sand, which is three units (300 per cubic feet) was selling at a cost of Rs17,000, three months ago. "In May, the government had announced takeover of sand quarries with an aim to bring down the cost of sand mined from river beds. But, six weeks have passed and still there is no sign of reduction in prices," he said. With the waiting time for trucks at the quarries for mining sand now increasing to more than 10 days, Yuvaraj said the costs of transportation, rental of vehicles and driver allowance further adds to the cost.

After the Public Works Department (PWD) took over the control of sand distribution, steps were initiated to identify new quarries. According to PWD sources, about 80 sites have been identified for mining sand, of which 30 are functional. "We have adequate number of quarries for mining sand. Moreover, a separate wing under the direct supervision of the engineer-in-chief has been constituted for looking into the issues relating to sand alone," a senior PWD official told TOI. The team of officials are in the process of identifying more quarries. "About 6,000 loads are mined from the existing quarries," the official said.

In a bid to decrease the delay in mining, the government will soon initiate online booking of sand. An app is being designed for the purpose to inform trucks about the availability of sand at the quarries. "It's simple! Trucks need to pre-book mining time as per the availability. In fact, the app is linked to the State Transport Authority (STA) to verify the registration number of the vehicles. If the registration numbers are not matching with the data in STA, booking cannot be done," an official said.

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)