No clarity on sand quarries activity guidelines

Vijayawada: Transport operators are being suffocated by the rules and guidelines framed by the Government for sand loading and transportation. Since lorries are not allowed into Government quarries, they have to utilise the services of tractors, which doubles the cost of transportation. The NGT has already banned the entry of lorries into Government quarries. The guidelines issued by the state government to curb the menace of illegal transportation of sand by smugglers, didn’t mention anything about the private quarries and patta lands, where sand de-casting was being carried out unauthorised, across the state.

The State Government has stated that the number of reaches closed due to various reasons were 186. The number of reaches currently in operation are 294, quantity identified as available is 1,45,40,723 cubic metres and quantity utilised under free sand policy  is 68,58,545 cubic metres. However, the Government didn’t mention as to whether the available sand was in the Government reaches or in private quarries. The district level sand committees are formed under the chairmanship of the District Collector. The Superintendent of Police, Deputy Transport Commis-sioner, River Conservator or Executive Engineer of Water Resource Depart-ment are its members and the Assistant Director of Mines and Geology is a member convener.

Accordingly, the district committees met and took a decision on the prices of sand loading and transportation. The Government has contemplated to give wide publicity in all districts regarding the prices by leveraging technology so that every citizen could know the price of sand. Care has been taken to fix the price on a lump sum basis instead of a ‘per kilometre’ rate in order to avoid confusion in calculating the cost of sand. The citizens in major town areas can now easily purchase sand ‘per tractor’ or ‘per lorry’ as a unit.  Caution has been taken to exclude lorries having more than 10 tons capacity, except those going through Visakhapatnam District and those being utilised for Government infrastructure works of the public utility.

In order to avoid illegal activities, the strengthening of the existing border check-posts has been given top priority and new check-posts are going to be established to curb the transportation of sand outside the State. For rural areas and in the districts where sand reaches were less, new reaches identification is being undertaken, even in third order streams in order to meet the demand. The rate fixing in rural areas will be on a ‘per kilometre’ basis, according to the Government. Once more reaches are identified the transportation charges in the rural areas will come down, according to the Minister for Mines and Geology, Sujaya Krishna Ranga Rao.

HC permits sand from agri lands:

The stay on the de-casting of sand in the patta lands in the Lankapalli Lanka village of Krishna district has suspended sand de-casting for the past eight months. The High Court verdict delivered in the month of October, last year relating to the de-casting of sand from agricultural patta lands, has given relief to the farming community across the State. In fact, the sand mafia under the guidance of a few ruling party leaders has created hurdles for the farmers in the State, especially in West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts. The High Court order has permitted the de-casting of sand from the agricultural patta lands free of cost, to those were affected by the floods earlier.

The High Court has given this verdict, based on a petition filed by some farmers of Krishna district, in which it stated that around 3.45 lakh cubic metres of sand could be de-casted in an area of 35 acres, located in Lankapali Lanka village of Pamidimukkala mandal, of Pamarru Assembly segment, Krishna district. However, the monopoly marketeers of sand mining have approached the court and got a stay, in the month of November, last year. Following the State Government’s inaction, the stay was not vacated so far and the de-casting of sand has been stopped in the 35 acre patta lands of Lankapalli Lanka village of Pamidimukkala mandal of Krishna district.

Krishna district SP Mr Sarva Sreshtha Tripathy has stated that check-posts had been set up at the Inter State borders-Dondapadu, Garikapadu, Polampalli and Rajupeta, to curb the illegal transportation of sand from the Andhra quarries.  The SP has stated that stringent action would be taken on any person irrespective of his cadre, caliber or any affiliation who would indulge in price raising or illegal transportation.  

In fact, the High Court’s orders issued in the month of October, last year have clearly stated that once the de-casting of sand was done, the farmers of the agriculture patta lands were only entitled to collect the expenditure incurred by them for such de-casting from the prospective persons, who intended to utilize the sand. In the wake of the latest orders issued by the State Government, the Lankapalli Lanka village farmers are waiting for a positive sign from the Government.