Bengaluru: The sand mafia is creating havoc with environment as they indiscriminately indulge in sand mining. The State Government, in order to curb such illegal activities, has decided to put an end to it by importing sand from other countries.

In order to fulfil the demand of three lakh metric tons a month, it has called for global tender.

Karnataka will be the first State in the history of the country to import sand. At present, every lorry load of sand is sold between Rs. 65,000 and Rs. 90,000. In order to stop this kind of exploitation, the government has decided to import sand from Philippines, Indonesia and other countries.

The imported sand will be sold through Mysore Sales International Limited (MSIL), a Government of Karnataka undertaking. It is estimated that price per lorry load would be between Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 35,000.

MSIL has to fulfil a demand of 50,000 metric tons at every stage and in order to meet this demand, it has called for global tender. This process will be completed by middle of July and in the first week of August itself, the customers can buy  sand.

The imported sand will be available at 18 dollars a lorry load which works out to about Rs. 1,000 per load. By the time it reaches Karnataka’s shore, the cost would go up to Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 16,000. The MSIL will add its transportation cost and profit fix a base price and sell it.

In spite of its best efforts to stop the sand mafia, the State government has failed. Added to this the mafia has brazenly attacked the government officials who have gone to stop them. The recent example is that of the attack on Deputy Commissioner Priyanka Mary Francis and Assistant Commissioner Shilpa Nag in Kadlur.

The government has taken this decision to protect environment, to save the rivers and to procure sand at low rates for the customers.

Earlier, Kerala and Maharashtra had imported sand from private parties and tried to sell it but they were not successful.