PWD to set up control room to keep an eye on sand depots across state

Higher officials in the department said that a total of five sand depots function in Tiruchy, Karur and Cuddalore and steps have been taken to establish 10 more such depots soon. Since CCTVs have been installed in all the depots, they would also set up a control room to prevent illegal sand mining. 

PWD sources said that it took a long time to float the e-tender and identify quality bidders, since they had earlier observed political involvement in the tender process and subsequently, it had led to illegal mining. So, they had established five depots and each depot was supplying 700 to 800 loads per day. Further, they will soon open more quarries in Thanjavur, Nagapattinam and Vellore to balance demand and supply, as sand scarcity hit the state early. 

“Setting up the control room would prevent sand smuggling. From the control room, we can monitor what is happening in the depots across the state. If there is no illegal sand mining, there will be no need to import river sand,” said a senior PWD official. 

S Yuvaraj, president of Tamil Nadu Lorry Owners Federation, welcomed the move. “As per new norms, lorry owners should book online for getting permission to load sand and this is a good initiative. The government should open sand quarries to reduce the price of sand,” he said. 

A special officer (Sand Mining), on the condition of anonymity, said, “Every sand depot has CCTVs and we watch the footage everyday. In order to monitor all the depots at one place, we will set up the control room in Chennai so that all the activities ranging from sand mining to sand transportation will be closely monitored.” 

Even as they were facing stiff opposition from the public residing near rivers, they tackled the situation in an appropriate manner, added the official.