Udupi : Balakrishna Shetty, CITU leader, said on Monday that the shortage of sand had badly affected the economy of Udupi district.

He was speaking at a dharna organised by construction workers affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s Office here.

Mr. Shetty said that the district administration should immediately permit the removal of sand in the district.

The scarcity of sand had created several problems in the district. So far, the BJP leaders have stated that they would have solved the problem but for the different governments at the Centre and in the State.

But now there was the BJP government both at the Centre and in the State. The elected representatives, including MLAs and the MP in the district, were from the BJP. Yet, they had failed to solve the problem of sand removal, he said.

Instead of solving the problem, both the BJP and the Congress leaders were busy issuing statements and counter-statements. “The lack of willpower on the part of the elected representatives is solely responsible for the sand removal problem remaining unsolved,” he said.

Mr. Shetty said that the government had declared Kundapur region as “eco-sensitive zone”. As a result, removal of sand could not take place there. The elected representatives should put pressure on the government to remove the tag of “eco-sensitive zone” for Kundapur so that workers in that region could remove sand there.

If there was no provision to remove sand in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) areas, then the government should allow removal of sand in non-CRZ areas, Mr. Shetty said.

H. Narasimha, Suresh Kalagara, Shekhar Bangera, Vittal Poojary, Dayananda Kotian, Ganesh Nayak, Jagadish Achar, Das Bhandary, Rajeev Padukone and Subash Nayak, CITU leaders, were present.