The State government may have been keen on importing river sand from Malaysia, but the industry is not very enthusiastic about it.
The cost of a tonne of imported river sand would be around ₹3,500, Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra said, while good quality river sand was available at as low as ₹2,200 per tonne locally. The high cost of imported sand and bad experience of importing it from the island-country for Kerala are major dampeners, industry insiders said.
Sridhar, a trader of both river sand and M-sand, said a small load (375 cubic metres) of good quality river sand costs around ₹35,000 in the local market. And 23 cubic metres make a tonne, thus holding around 16 tonnes in a small truck. This brings the cost of a tonne of river sand in the range of ₹2,000 to ₹2,200. Meanwhile, a tonne of M-sand costs between ₹760 and ₹800, he said.
Thus, the river sand from Malaysia would cost almost 38% more than that available here.
However, availability of good river sand is a tough proposition today in the local market. Most of the supply comes from Tamil Nadu, architect Khalid Rehman said. But since the market had already shifted to M-sand to a large extent, import of river sand from Malaysia at this cost, he said, was not viable.
Industry bodies are also not enthusiastic about this move. Suresh Hari, secretary, CREDAI – Bengaluru chapter, said that earlier experience of importing sand from Malaysia for Kerala was bad. “Many times, instead of river sand, importers in Kerala have got consignments of beach sand that is not of good quality for construction. There have been several cases where the sand was wet, adding to the weight and causing losses,” he said.
