Bhopal | May 09, 2015: One sand mine in the chief minister’s home district Sehore, which had a base price of over Rs 2 crore, finally fetched over Rs 25 crore in Madhya Pradesh’s first ever sand mining e-auction on Friday.

During the e-auction, the sand mine spread over 16 acres in Sehore’s Budhni opened with a base price of Rs 2.06 crore and had three bidders.

Kartikey Constructions later won the bid with a whopping Rs 25.87 crore.

When questioned about such a unprecedented trend and whether some mines in the state were undervalued in the past, secretary of state mining department Sheo Shekhar Shukla said, “We will have to go into the each case individually to see why some sand mines have fetched such a whopping price. May be it is because of the quantum of sand generated in that particular stretch is regularly replenished and is easily transportable.”

He said that most sand mines e-auctioned on Friday were between 5 to 25 acres because of which many bidders could apply and monopoly was lessened.

HT had earlier reported about illegal sand mining in Sehore district.

HT had earlier reported about illegal sand mining from areas such as Shahganj, Joshipur, Mahukula, Baneta Plot, Sardar Nagar, Narayanpur and Nandner among others.

Collector of Sehore district, Sudam Khade said that implementation of the new sand mining policy will curb illegal sand mining.

He added that in the last seven to eight months, they had taken action in 280 cases of illegal sand mining and have realized a penalty amounting to Rs 78 lakh.

(Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/)