Third Malaysian vessel with sand reaches Ennore port

This recent development emerges within a couple of days after the PWD (Mines) opened the online booking for sand last week. The second Malaysian vessel, Raffles Quay, reached the city two weeks ago. The Department is planning to deliver the imported river sand to the customers from Tuesday.

An official said, “We received 909 orders from lorry owners. So far, the department has received orders for 741.51 cubic feet of sand from across the State. We are receiving an overwhelming response from the sand lorry owners.”

PWD maintains that one unit of sand is sold at Rs 2,300, which was fixed two months ago.

The Tamil Nadu Sand Lorry Owners’ Association president S Yuvaraj said, “We have been waiting for more than six months to receive sand from the state. We had made a payment of Rs 20,000 crore in advance when the government announced its decision to import at the beginning of the year.”

The association had staged a demonstration in front of the PWD office demanding to streamline the sand supply last Monday. In order to pacify the protesters, the government assured five quarries will be opened for mining purposes by January.

However, an official claimed that opening of quarries will be solely dependent on the water level along the river basins.