Floods have started once again in the Godavari, Krishna and other rivers due to heavy rains in upper Karnataka and Maharashtra catchment areas. This is coming as a big blow to the construction industry and also to the Jaganmohan Reddy government’s immediate plan to ensure normal sand supply to the people. For some weeks, there is all-round criticism from opposition and the public over lack of sand which has thrown thousands of construction workers out of work and badly hit most trades and industries.
This is despite CM Jagan order to the officials to remove all hurdles in sand supply. As announced earlier, the new sand policy came into effect from September 5. But still the public are not able to get supply in time. Their online requests for sand are being delayed for various reasons.
The online services are still being streamlined now. Especially, the online payments are giving bigger technical problems. In addition to this, higher inflows and floods in the rivers have forced the officials to stop sand mining activities in most of the reaches. Mining will start only after floods recede completely. It is not yet clear how many days it will take. The meager supplies from the few existing sand depots are meeting just a fraction of the public demand.
