Telangana Government will formulate a new sand policy soon, to cater to the needs of the people and government for revenue generation, according to Chief Minister, A Revanth Reddy 

While asking the officials to study sand policies adopted by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other states in the country, Reddy said the present sand policy in the state has become a `scourge of corruption’.

While warning that the illegal sand quarrying and transportation should be stopped immediately, the Chief Minister set a 48-hour deadline to all the officials to take measures to curb illegal practices in sand mining and sales. Teams of Vigilance and ACB will be engaged in inspections in all districts after two days to weed out corruption and illegal practices. 

Surprise inspections were already conducted in Nizamabad and Warangal by the transport department on February 3, in which 83 sand lorries were checked out, of which 22 were found to be unauthorised. The inspection revealed 25 percent of the sand was being moved illegally. Reddy added that there is a need to stop irregularities from taking place at the centre of TSMDC and reform the entire Mines department.

An integrated online system will be developed to collect the details of such buildings and the Mines and Geology Department will visit the places to issue permissions for constructions.

The CM suggested using geo-tagging and GPRS to prevent illegal granite and mineral mining and smuggling. The Chief Minister instructed the officials to prepare a detailed report on the pending cases related to granite as well as other quarries and the status of the cases before the agencies.

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