Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s idea of selling the sand on-line has brought the government revenue of Rs.71.25 crores in just three months. The AP Government has introduced the on-line sand booking and sales in October and within three months, the business is flourishing with ever growing orders and thus proportionately the revenue to the state government.

 

During the first month, there were 8,524 orders and it got Rs. 5.43 crores. It was bulged to 69,832 orders and earned Rs.33.16 revenue in November. During the two weeks of this December month 70,699 orders were placed amounting to Rs. 32.43 crores. So, as the orders keep increasing, proportionately the revenue also keep increasing.

 

State government has authorized the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) to handle the mining, sales and supply of the sand to the consumers in the 13 districts. Consumers can place their orders for the sand through Mee Seva counters or through the official web site. SERP is also roping in State Bank of India, State Bank of Hyderabad and Andhra Bank to handle the online money transactions.

 

According to SERP CEO G Veerapandiyan, East Godavari stood top with 46,244 orders and Srikakulam lowest with 10,366 orders. There was mixed response to this new sand policy.

 

Builders and common public express quite happy for making their job easy, but people in remote districts like Srikakulam and Ananthapur opined that the system need to be streamlined to ensure timely supply of sand for a reasonable price. Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (Credai) AP president A Siva Reddy said “Of course, initially we have faced some problems, but now there is lots of improvement in the situation. Probably, the system may be fined tuned during the course of time.”