Vijayawada: Consumers want more sand stock points
Sand being loaded into a tipper at a sand depot at West Ibrahimpatnam in Krishna district
Vijayawada: Keeping in view the difficulties faced by the district administration to extract sand from reaches near Krishna river in the last rainy season due floods, now the officials have arranged stock points and kept ready11 lakh tons of sand at various stock points and reaches in Krishna district to supply to consumers.
Sand price per tonne varies from Rs 510 to Rs 795 depending on the stock point and location from the river. With the sand booking facility available at the ward and village secretariats, consumers are booking sand online from both urban and rural areas.
The Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) has made arrangements to stockpile the sand at the stock points and sand reaches in this rainy season. A large number of consumers faced hardships last year to get sand in the rainy season because the sand reaches were inundated in the flood water. Vehicles could not pass through the sand reaches resulting in disruption in sand supplies. About 11.82 lakh tonnes of sand is available at various depots in the district by Tuesday.
West Ibrahimpatnam has 3.24 lakh tonnes sand stock, Paritala depot has 1.44 lakh tonnes, Paritala-1 has 1.66 lakh tonnes, Paritala-6 has stock of 81,212 tonnes and Donabanda has 63,613 tonnes sand.
On the other hand, sand stocks are very less downstream of Prakasam barrage. At Avanigadda depot only 500 tons stock available, Madduru only 1680 tonnes, Royyuru 1335 tonnes, Machilipatnam 2500 tonnes.
The consumers have to bear the transportation charges. On average the truck load of sand costs Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 depending on the distance from the buyer's point.
The consumers can get details online logging to www.sand.ap.gov.in maintained by Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation.
Now, the customers are demanding the APMDC to stockpile the sand at maximum places so that they have to pay less transportation charges. The transportation charges are more if the buyers point is away from the stock point.