Comments
The Andhra Pradesh Government has decided to promote rock sand manufacturing units in the State, as scarcity of natural river sand is severely affecting the construction sector, according to State Mines Minister G. Aruna Kumari.
She was speaking here on Thursday at the inaugural session of a regional seminar on rock sand manufacturing units, organised by the AP Department of Mines and Geology, to find alternatives to natural river sand.
She said rock sand was the cheaper, safer alternative to natural sand.
“Excessive exploitation of natural sand, as the Supreme Court has pointed out, will lead to ecological imbalances and therefore we have to use both natural sand and artificial sand in construction activity.
"There is little awareness about rock sand and therefore we are conducting such seminars in the state. Two more such seminars on the issue will be conducted — one at Tirupati and the next in Hyderabad — and after a final meeting with the Chief Minister, the Government would decide on the incentives and subsidies to be offered to rock sand manufacturing units, she said.
Aruna Kumari said the Government had constituted a Cabinet sub-committee on the issue and in a week or so a sand policy would be formulated based on the recommendations. She admitted that there was a sand mafia at work in the state and “strict steps would be taken to curb it’’.
The Minister said there was potential in the state to produce 100 million tonnes of rock sand, but at present the installed capacity of all rock sand units in the state was only 10 million tonnes or so.
Vijay K. Kosaraju, President of the AP Sand Manufacturers’ Association, pleaded for soft loans to rock sand units and incentives such as mining royalty exemption, excise duty exemption, and power subsidies.
Ch. Ramakotaiah, President of the local chapter of the Builders' Association of India, said use of rock sand should be made compulsory in all Government projects.
Visakhapatnam Steel Plant CMD A.P. Chowdhary said there should be greater research on alternatives to sand and the potential of blast furnace slag and flyash as alternatives to sand should also be explored.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.