Government acts tough on illegal sand transportation

The state government has collected Rs 120 crore in penalty from 48,000 lorries for transporting sand without permission. Replying to the debate in demand for grants for the PWD department in the state Assembly, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said the previous DMK regime had only collected Rs 50 crore from 18,000 lorries, but the AIADMK has prevented 48,000 lorries from transporting sand illegally and collected Rs 120 crore during the six years led by former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

Accusing the DMK of not reigning in on the illegal sand lorry operators, Palaniswami said that his government was making efforts to gradually stop mining sand from rivers and streams. He was replying to the charges leveled by DMK MLA Durai Chandrasekar who drew the government’s attention to mining sand without permission.

Claiming that the government was making efforts to increase public awareness on use of M-sand, the Chief Minister said the bids received were being perused by the government. The tenders would be finalised shortly and M-sand imported from foreign countries would be distributed to the people in a couple of months. Listing out the elaborate efforts being made by the government to prevent sand transportation without permission, including fixing of GPS trackers in lorries and online registration of sand trucks and online booking of sand, the Chief Minister said there was no chance of irregularities being committed in sand mining and no truck can enter a yard to collect sand without booking sand online.