Appreciating the decision of the YSRCP government to come out with a new sand policy, former BJP Floor Leader in the Assembly P. Vishnu Kumar Raju said the total ban on sand mining and transportation sought to be imposed up to July 1 and invoking the PD Act for violation appeared to be a harsh decision and would cripple the construction sector.
Urging the government to reconsider its decision, he said the government may appoint officials as in-charges of sand reaches and oversee delivery at a cost fixed by it until July 1, he said. Also with the ban on transportation, builders could not move sand from one site to another. The government may introduce a voluntary disclosure scheme and may collect some price for it, Mr. Raju suggested. Besides mining could be continued so that sand would be ready by the time the new policy was announced by the government, he said.
He said construction work would come to a standstill all over the State because of the decision and thousands workers would be affected and delivery would be delayed.
He recalled that the free sand policy introduced by the government after the issue was repeatedly raised by him with the then Chief Minister turned out to be a failure resulting in loss of revenue to the government and rampant corruption.
SIT report
Mr. Raju said special investigation team was appointed into land scandals in Visakhapatnam but in spite of requests to the then Chief Minister and the present Chief Secretary the report was not made public. He demanded that it be made public so that the names of leaders involved would be known.
He said in spite of speaking for a record time in the Assembly and taking up issues related to people he lost the election to the Assembly because of money power.
‘Increase wards’
BJP city president M. Nagendra said the delimitation of wards to 81 was based on 2011 census and since the current population was more than 20 lakh the wards should be increased to 100 for effective representation by corporators. Besides some wards were part of more than one Assembly constituency and they should be limited to one constituency for taking up development activities better.
General secretary Kesava kanth and secretary Subrahmanyam were present.
