Municipal Administration and Rural Development Minister S.P. Velumani on Saturday refuted the charge levelled by DMK leader M.K. Stalin that there was corruption to the tune of ₹1,000 crore in the procurement of sand for Greater Chennai Corporation projects.
In a statement, Mr. Velumani said tenders were being finalised as per the T.N. Tender Transparency Act. In the years 2017-18 and 2018-19, infrastructure projects worth ₹1,164.85 crore were carried out, involving sand-cement mixture.
Only 33% of the total expenditure was spent on constructions that require cement mixed with sand, which was valued at ₹384.04 crore. M-sand or river sand was just 8.5% of this concrete mixture, meaning only ₹32.67 crore was spent on m-sand and river sand for constructions, he pointed out. Dismissing the claims, he asked: “When the total worth is just ₹32.67 crore, how is it possible that there could be a ₹1,000-crore scam?” He said Mr. Stalin’s statement that m-sand was 50% less expensive than river sand was inaccurate.
Wondering how the Opposition leader, who was a local administration minister earlier, did not know this fact, he said: “Stalin is just lying to gain political mileage”.
