The Builders Association of India Southern Centre on Tuesday requested the State government to facilitate and promote manufactured sand (M-Sand) to cope with scarcity of river sand.
Addressing a press conference here, BAI past national president R. Radhakrishnan said “The demand for river sand is more than the availability. Projects involving construction of houses with a total area of over 15 million sqft and infrastructure development have been hit in the State. The scarcity also affected around 4 lakh construction employees in Chennai and 40 lakh workers in allied industries across the State.”
Granite is crushed to produce M-Sand which is cubically-shaped aggregates with grounded edges, washed and graded with consistency to be used as a substitute for river sand.
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“The government should encourage private entrepreneurs to manufacture sand. Tax concession should be given to the manufacturers who are willing to invest in the production of M-Sand,” said Mr. Radhakrishnan.
Builders also stressed the need for implementing recommendations of a high-level committee constituted in 2002 to find alternative materials for river sand and help prevent its depletion.
Chairman of Builders’ Association of India Southern Centre S. Ayyanathan stressed the need for increasing the area of legal mines and identify more mines in the State. The Builders’ Association of India offered its services to identify some stretches that would not cause any environment degradation during mining.
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