VIJAYAWADA: Officials of the AP Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) are all set to hand over the sand operations under the upgraded policy to Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd (JPVL) by the end of this week.APMDC officials say that the sand in the stockyards/depots will be handed over to the selected agency to be sold to the consumers at the price fixed by the State government.
Recently, the government issued guidelines for transferring the sand operations to the selected agency under the upgraded sand policy.When contacted, APMDC Managing Director Venkat Reddy said that the formalities were being completed for handing over the operations to Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd. “We are in the process of transferring the remaining stock and all the assets available with APMDC Ltd pertaining to sand operations such as weighbridges, CCTV cameras, computers to the selected agency after evaluating their book value,’’ Venkat Reddy said, adding that the process may take three days time to complete and the operations are likely to be transferred to the agency by the end of the week.
While upgrading the policy, the State government has decided to entrust the responsibility of sand mining and supply to Central agencies, and Metal Scrap Trade Corporation (MSTC) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the APMDC for selection of agency to carry out sand operations in the state.
In the process of bidding conducted by the MSTC, Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd emerged as the successful bidder after quoting the highest amount for all the three packages for two years. The government had divided the sand reaches in the State into three — Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and East Godavari (Package 1), West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam (Package 2) and Nellore, Chittoor, Kadapa, Kurnool and Anantapur districts (Package 3).