Sand in the eye of a storm

Padma and Srinivas have planned to hold the housewarming ceremony of their house in April. Their dream house in Ramakrishna Nagar in the city, a two storied building for their joint family has been taking shape since the last few months. And, prudent as they are, they had timed their construction time and budgeted it so well, that even the relatives were sure they could book their tickets to Mysore for the houswarming in April, without a moment’s doubt.

But, since last one month, the couple are facing harrowing times with complete unavailability of sand. With no sand, they are unable to progress further on their work and unless basic things are done, other works can never be taken up in the house that’s under construction. “Initially, when the strike started, we panicked. The sand came costly then.

We even paid Rs 25,000 a load at some point. This was nearly double from Rs 10,000 - 12,000 a load when we started our construction,” recollects Srinivas. But, eventually when the sand touched a premium of Rs 40,000, they stopped procuring it.

Risky

“It was risky and load was lesser than the usual quantity. We couldn’t bargain much on this. It is better to stop work than continue for the heck of it,” says Srinivas, but Padma is quite jittery. Because, she has pledged her jewellery for the house since they chose not to avail loan for the purpose. The couple will end up overshooting the budget by Rs five lakh, above their margin, with initial estimate for the house pitted at Rs 25 lakh.

It is a usual sight to see half constructed houses and apartment blocks donning the look of deserted places, fit enough locations for a Ram Gopal Verma movie to be shot, thanks to district administration that didn’t plan for this. And neither did the people bargain for it.

Three flat days into sand policy coming into force, the district administration promptly displayed a notice that the sand stocks were over and that sand wouldn’t be available ‘till further notice.’

For over a month now, sand is hurting every builder and every civil contractor. Builders Association of India had expressed its apprehension about smooth transition from no policy scene to sand policy in the district. A member, who spoke to City Herald said the district, though so close to sand  reserves, was facing such crisis as against rest of the state where sand was not available in abundance, yet the crisis was not so bad.

It is worth thinking if there is more than what meets the eye in Mysore district. Why this sudden change and need to regularise selling of sand? In a bid to bring relief to those who were presumably ‘suffering’ at the hands of private suppliers, the district administration set out to straighten things out, of course after the court order came.

But, this was exactly the step where the bridges were burnt. Without adequate preparation and in a vengeful step, the district incharge minister wanted the order to be implemented at the earliest. Result: city ran out of sand in two days after the order was implemented.

This was even before people could gain clarity on how to go about buying sand. Grapevine has it that the sand was only sent to government projects and none of the civilians got it.

Now, it remains to be seen how the government would compensate for its own folly.