Over 10,000 tonnes of sand mined in Udupi district; demand almost fulfilled

Udupi: Over 10,000 tonnes of sand has been extracted in the district so far and thus, the sand crisis the district was facing till recently is now almost becoming a thing of the past. Issuing of permits for sand mining is in progress, 158 among 170 applicants have been found to be eligible and 120 applicants have already received their licenses.

There was a delay in the issuing of the permits due to festival holidays and the entire process is expected to be completed by the end of this week. While a vigil os being maintained to ensure that sand does not get transported out of the district he work of fixing GPS on sand trucks has been completed.

he district sand committee has decided not to issue sand licenses in excess of 170 and the permits come with penal causes for violation of conditions. Apparently, 12 persons who were engaged in traditional methods of clearing sand blocks before 2001 are facing criminal cases.

The sand mining will go on till the end of this year and so far the order received pertains to extraction of 7.96 lakh tonnes of sand. Meanwhile, the people can obtain sand through sand app. The app helps in letting know the people, the rate of sand that day, and remit the amount so that the sand would be delivered at their doorsteps. There is no need to play vehicle hire charges separately. Besides, the people will get information in the app about the current state of their order, from the point of booking of sand till its delivery.

All trucks carrying sand have GPS while the sand docks have GPS along with geo fencing. The current rate of sand is Rs 5,500 per ten tonnes of sand and Rs 96 has to be paid by way of royalty for transportation of every tonne of sand. Rs 1,500 has been fixed for sand delivery by small vehicles up to 20 km distance while, Rs 2,500 is the charge for the delivery via a big vehicel within the same distance. Rs 50 per km will have to be paid for additional distance.

The work of identifying sand docks is in progress and that sand will be supplied as per demand once the work of issuing licenses is completed informed Ranji Nayak, senior geologist in the department of mines and geology here, and added that there are plans to distribute sand by using sand bazaar app from next year onward.