The huge demand-supply gap in sand mining and supplies in West Godavari district greeted the two Ministers, Peethala Sujatha (Mines) and Pidikondala Manikyala Rao (Endowments), who hail from the district, at a review meeting here on Wednesday.
According to the district administration, as much as 26.56 lakh Cum. has been identified for extraction from all the 22 reaches - 10 in stream reaches, six each in open reaches and reservoir reaches. District Collector Bhaskar Katamneni told the Ministers that in the last one month, after the government announced its new sand policy, the district administration extracted 1 lakh Cum from various reaches.
Mining at four reaches is yet to take off, while another four reaches became operational from Tuesday. Although the Collector said the delay was due to the reaches still remaining under water, mining is said to be not operational for want of cooperation from the ruling party MLAs representing eight out of the 15 Assembly constituencies.
Ms. Sujatha admitted that she had been receiving complaints that the administration was failing to meet the demand, which was said to be the cause for the soaring sand prices. Incidentally, her observations were corroborated with the background note which stated that 13,000 Cum. of sand was pending supply to some consumers even after they made payments at MeeSeva centres for a long time. She pointed out that long rows of trucks were observed at some mining points waiting for their turn to for loading with the material for days together, indicating the demand-supply gap.
Meanwhile, Mr. Manikyala Rao said the black-marketing could be curtailed, and the inflated sand prices brought down only by way of pushing up supplies. The Collector said a unit of sand was sold at Rs. 3,500-odd in the black market by a section of traders as against its price of Rs. 500 at the extraction point.
Superintendent of Police K. Raghuram Reddy said as many as 27 cases were booked against those involved in illegal sand mining in the last five months since June in the district with Kovvur earning notoriety. The Ministers asked the top brass of the district administration to act tough against the mafia trying to scuttle the government’s ‘unique’ sand policy.
