Even as permission was being sought from the courts of law for disposing of a large quantity of seized sand stockpiled with police stations in the district, the district administration on Wednesday resolved to make the sand available only for the construction of Ashraya homes after obtaining the courts’ consent.
The seized sand has been dumped at the DAR grounds here and seized trucks with sand have been parked in front of various police stations. In T. Narsipur taluk alone, 1,284 cubic metres of seized sand is in police custody from 172 cases.
The Mysuru District Sand Monitoring Committee met on Wednesday, with Deputy Commissioner D. Randeep chairing the meeting. Superintendent of Police Ravi Channannavar, city police officers, Public Works Department (PWD) officials, and senior geologist Somashekar were also present.
At the meeting, it was said that applications have been submitted to the courts for permission to dispose of seized sand. The officials then resolved to accord top priority to supplying sand for the construction of Ashraya homes.
The officials also agreed that the taluk-level sand monitoring committees, which comprise assistant commissioners, tahsildars, deputy superintendents of police, PWD engineers, forest officials and others, needed to become proactive and carry out raids more often to curb illegal sand extraction and transportation. These committees were constituted four years ago.
“There is a provision to make the seized sand available to the public for the construction of houses at the rates fixed by the PWD. This depends on availability, but priority will be given to government works,” a source in the Mines and Geology Department said.
