Naidu Cracks Down On Sand Mafia, Mulls Sand Policy

Cracking the whip on the sand mafia in the State, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today made a radical shift in sand mining and sales policy in the State.

Coming down heavy on sand syndicates and the political leaders drawing profits from them, Naidu listed out the major changes in the policy. This includes:

1. Syndicates and other middlemen will play no part in selling or transporting sand from quarries henceforth.

2. The State government will no longer collet sand cess, export or import duties, toll and other sorts of revenue.

3. Employ the police and concerned ministry officials to reduce the influence of syndicates on sand reaches.

4. The government will no longer charge royalties and mining charges from licensed quarry owners.

5. Special quality sand will now be restricted to national use (export and laying national highways).

By introducing this policy, the AP government is set to lose 1,000 crores of annual revenue. But the CM went ahead with the implementation of the policy.

Naidu launched scathing attack at several of his own Party members as they were proven guilty of aiding syndicates and strengthening the mining mafia. He said that although AP had illegitimized syndicates a while ago, TDP members had successfully kept them running. He also said that, as per reports, TDP earned crores of income illegally through the mafia and also exhorbitantly hiked taxes and rent on sand trucks and mining equipment. He vowed to divert this revenue to poor miners and legal quarry owners.

He pulled up some of the TDP leaders for letting the Guntur and Krishna illegal sand reaches to operate under their watch.

It is also speculated that in order to prevent the Opposition from clashing, they too were made a part of the business by the accused TDP leaders.

The Guntur sand reach has allegedly went against government ordres and smuggled "special sand". Several administrators, members of the Ruling and Opposition parties, and several police and revenue officials allegedly aided the Guntur sand scam.

Apart from Guntur, the Krishna district, too, has large illegal dumps from where high quality sand is sold at exhorbitant prices to regions in and around Hyderabad.

Following the CM's crackdown, the AP Police has raided several checkposts and dumps and seized sand trucks. They will reportedly make several arrests in the coming few days.