With river sand turning out to be a scarce commodity, the state government has decided to promote manufactured-sand (M-sand) which has proved as an effective alternative to sand and a fine aggregate in mortars and concrete to bridge severe supply-demand gap of sand in the state.
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra told reporters here on Monday that as a first step towards promotion of M-sand, the state government has issued directions to the PWD to see that it should prefer M-sand instead of river sand in all its building activities.
Saying that the state government is acting upon the recent Supreme Court directions to draft a new sand policy, the minister said that a committee consisting senior-level officials has been constituted to frame new sand mining as well as stone crushing policy.
Stating that the committee had been asked to submit its draft proposals, which would be on the basis of the Supreme Court's directions, Jayachandra said that within a month the committee is expected to draft new rules for governing the sand as well as stone crushing activities in the state.
Maintaining that several private firms have come forward to set up M-sand manufacturing units at Bidadi near Bangalore, he said that once M-sand was made popular the demand for the river sand would come down and also solve environmental concerns.
"Once the committee submits its report, the state government's 2011-sand policy would be replaced with the new and comprehensive document to deal with the problem," he said.
The new minor mineral policy would also provide solutions, mainly relating to getting clearance from the forest as well as environmental agencies for the stone crushing units.