AP govt earns Rs 261 crore by auctioning red sanders

The Andhra Pradesh government  on Monday auctioned  valuable red sanders logs from its Tirupati depot and earned Rs 261 crore on a single day.

The government had to overcome several environmental and legal hurdles before the auction.

The government had invited bidders for disposing of  4,160 metric tonnes of the wood.
 P K Jha, the additional  chief conservators of forests, told a press conference here on Tuesday that bidders from India and other south-east Asian countries and China had bought 862 metric tonnes of three different categories.

The forest department sold the entire lot of 4.69 metric tonnes (mt) of A grade, 78.13 mt of B grade and 779.18 mt of C grade red sanders during the auction that continued till 10:30 pm.

“We have achieved this despite efforts of organised, vested interests to stop the process till the last minute,” Jha said.

The Forest Department was not sure of Monday’s auction as it was dealing with a petition for a stay in the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad. Another petition in a Chennai court against the auction was dismissed on Tuesday.
DH News Service