TS sand sales revenues cross Rs. 5,000 cr

Hyderabad: For the Telangana government, sand has turned into a big revenue generator with cumulative revenues crossing Rs5,000 crore recently. According to official data, the cumulative revenues that Telangana churned out from sand sales since 2014 stood at Rs5,186.97 crore as of October 9, 2022.

In the current financial year (2022-23), the revenues from sand sales reached Rs392.98 crore as of October 9, 2022.

Interestingly, the Telangana State Mineral Development Corporation (TSMDC), which is responsible for the mining and sale of sand in the State, continues to generate decent revenues year after year despite not increasing sand rates since 2015.

"We have not increased sand prices since 2015. Incidentally, as sand availability has increased now, the market prices this year are less than those prevailed in the previous years. Though sand operations are very challenging due to various reasons, we developed a foolproof system overall, leading to increase in revenues," Dr G Malsur, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, TSMDC, told Bizz Buzz. He took over reins of TSMDC in December 2016.

During 2014-15, the first financial year after Telangana was formed, TSMDC's annual revenues were at just Rs19.12 crore. In 2021-22, the corporation earned a whopping Rs802.11 crore, with the cumulative revenues reaching Rs 5,186.97 crore from the sale of 8.57 crore cubic metres of sand till date.

TSMDC has developed Sand Sale Management & Monitoring System (SSMMS) that allows people to book sand online without any hassles. The corporation, which has also put in place a monitoring system to curb misuse, has sand quarries spread across Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Badradri Kothagudem, Mancherial and several other districts across Telangana. The total sand available from all sources is 8.57 crore metric tonnes (MTs). The corporation has 64 de-siltation sand reaches with available sand estimated at 3.58 crore MT. Of them, 31 reaches are in operation now. It also takes up sand quarrying in 166 patta lands which are home to 54.49 lakh MT. Operations in these areas are halted during the rainy season. These apart, the corporation has been allocated 125 sand bearing areas that house 3.20 crore MT of sand. It obtained environmental clearance for 83 reaches till now while the clearance is under process for 43 other reaches.

Dr Malsur said that the District Level Sand Committee (DLSC) of Karimnagar allotted 1.12 crore MT of sand to the corporation recently. The Jayashankar Bhupalpally DLSC also allocated 67.37 lakh MT. The corporation is in the process of taking up operations in these newlyallocated areas.

TSMDC has 1.84 lakh registered customers, and 39,821 registered vehicles that can transport sand. As per the SSMMS dashboard on October 10, 2022, TSMDC has 755 stockyards in operations with available sand quantity standing at 1.68 lakh metric tonnes.

However, recent heavy rains and floods in Godavari basin have impacted the corporation's operations as well and some of its equipment and machinery got damaged. But the corporation has restored most of the operations. Though cost of total sand washed away in these floods has been estimated at Rs78.76 crore, the corporation has not incurred any losses as it pays contractors only for the sand dispatched from the stockyards.

On the latest trends, Dr Malsur said that the use of river sand has come down considerably when it comes to large real estate projects. "In several big projects in Hyderabad, river sand is not being used even for plastering due to advancements in construction technology and materials," he said.

We have not increased sand rates since 2015. Incidentally, as sand availability has increased now, the market prices this year are less than the previous years

- Dr G Malsur, Vice-Chairman and MD, TSMDC