Next river sand load to land at Adani port

For all these months, the PWD was delivering the river sand and operating from the Ennore Port Limited.

According to officials of the PWD (Mines), the river sand stocked at the Ennore Port was completely sold out. “In this consignment around 55,000 tonne of the river sand were imported from Malaysia. It reached the city shores onboard vessel MV LMZ Vega last week. We have already opened the online booking for the new consignment,” the official added.

This is the fifth vessel that the State is set to receive since last October. A total of 2.75 lakh tonnes of river sand has been imported from Malaysiaso far.

The President of Tamil Nadu State Sand Lorry Owners Federation, S Yuvaraj, said, “There are no takers for the imported river sand. The State requires around 30,000 tonnes of sand per day. But the imported river sand is not bought in other places except the Chennai city.”

Last year, the government assured to open at least five quarries this January to meet the overwhelming demand of sand for construction purposes. “We have made repeated demands with the PWD (Mines) to open quarries in the State but they are yet to take a decision on it,” Yuvaraj said. The sand lorry associations have staged numerous protests before the PWD office located at Chepauk.

According to the industry sources, the associations have paid a huge sum of nearly Rs 20 crore in advance to receive river sand from the State.

An official claimed, “We have sent the proposals to the government. We are yet to receive the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) which needs to be cleared to remove all the hurdles pertaining to this project. In the immediate future, there is minimal chances of opening quarries across the state.”