Sand bags will cost big money bags along Karnataka coast

Sand prices in coastal areas are set to go through the roof, hitting all construction activities big time.

It won’t just increase the cost of construction, but also make its procurement difficult due to non-availability.

Coastal areas, particularly Mangalore, Udupi and Karwar, which are set to attract investment in infrastructure and manufacturing sectors, are already facing the heat due to shortage and increasing prices.

To regulate the price, the government clamped restrictions on the movement of sand and also unleashed new regulations that are being opposed by sand contractors.

“The sand policy of 2011, released by the government earlier this year, had the right mix of regulations and would have kept the sand prices stable for long, but in another order, the government directed the public works department to take control of stocking and transportation of sand from one place to another. This would not only cause delays, but also increase operational cost of sand extraction and transportation,” said Mayur Ullal, convener of the joint action committee of different organisations representing extractors, transporters, contractors and labour associations.

“The coastal dynamics are different. Sand dunes on the riverbeds keep moving due to the lateral pressure. As a result, extraction becomes difficult. In addition, there is a ban on mechanical extraction from the riverbeds as mentioned in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification. Due to coastal dynamics and currents, most of the sand is deposited in CRZ notified areas. While we respect the CRZ notification and its relation to environmental impact, but to sustain the developmental activities and keep the price of sand stable and affordable, we need to have a special concession in the form of a separate policy for sand mining in coastal areas,” feels the joint committee members.

In a special meeting held in Bangalore on June 16 to discuss the special status to coastal areas, the district in-charge ministers of the three coastal districts had agreed to persuade the government to afford special status to coastal areas but the decision was yet to see the light of the day. In the meantime, sand prices started rising sharply from the base prices of Rs1800 in March to Rs6,500 in September. Had the PWD taken control of sand marketing, the prices would have reached Rs9,000 to Rs10,000.

The National Highways Authority of India, which is building a four-lane highway along the coast from Buntwal to Shiroor and further to Goa, too, felt the pinch. “The cost of building the highway will rise considerably if sand prices keep rising continuously. We have already experienced 20% cost escalation,” said officials of project contractors Navayuga Constructions, Hyderabad.
The contractors working on projects under the Mangalore Special Economic Zone also complained of escalating costs.

“We need huge volumes of sand and planned to bring our production unit to Mangalore SEZ due to the low cost of construction. But once here, we experienced that the cost of construction had gone up by more than 40%, which is now more or less equivalent to the costs in Vadodara and Ahmedabad, which was due to the increase in sand prices, I understand,” said a contractor from Gujarat, building a production unit for a petroleum downstream industry.

The Contractors’ Association and three other trade associations in the field of sand mining will march to the district office with over 5,000 persons working in sand mining and about 700-800 sand trucks to the Mangalore city central area on 29 September. Similar protests have been organised in Udupi and Karwar.