The construction industry has been in a slump in the last two years due to acute shortage of sand in Tamil Nadu, worsened by the High Court ban on river sand mining.

That is why the recent Supreme Cout order staying the closing down of sand quarries has come as a relief, say developers. M Murali, Managing Director, Shriram Properties , said that the recent stay by the Supreme Court is welcome at a time when construction activities are under stress.

River sand shortage

River sand shortage has delayed over ₹10,000 crore worth of construction projects, blocked new project launches and caused over five lakh job losses. Also, in the last six months, sand price has increased from ₹35 per cubic feet to ₹135 resulting in increase in construction cost.

Suresh Krishn, President of the Chennai chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI), said the demand for sand in Tamil Nadu is 10 million Cubic Feet (CFT) per day. Currently only 5 million CFT of sand, through a combination of M-sand and river sand, are available for construction purposes.

The solution, developers say, is regularisation of river sand mining and viable alternatives. R Radhakrishnan, former National President, Builders Association of India, said: “There is no regulation in place either for manufactured sand (M-sand) or for imports,” he said.

M-Sand

Though M-sand is an alternative, it is not suitable for plastering and production is not enough to meet the daily requirement. In the case of imported sand, there is no clarity from the State and around 55,000 tonnes of imported sand from Malaysia continue to be stuck at the Tuticorin port.

The price of M-sand is in the range of ₹50-65 and imported sand between ₹40 and ₹70 respectively. Murali said that while M-sand and imported could be short-term alternatives, they are not viable in long run. 66“For a country as big as India, you need to be sustainable and cannot depend on imports for construction activity,” he added.

It is impossible to completely replace river sand with alternatives, he added.

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