Mangaluru: The Dakshina Kannada district administration is mulling banning transportation of sand to other districts.

The move is to ensure sufficient supply of sand for construction works in the district. Various organisations from the construction industry have been demanding the government to ensure uninterrupted supply of sand at a reasonable price for works to be taken up in the district. Organisations have been complaining about sand being transported to various parts of the state and also to neighbouring districts of Kerala.

Deputy commissioner Sasikanth Senthil said DK district needs around 1.9 million metric tonnes of sand for construction works every year. He said to ensure supply of sufficient quantity of sand, the district administration will take necessary steps including banning sand transportation to other districts. However, he said, a decision in this regard will be taken after holding discussions on various aspects.

“We will issue permits for mining sand in non-coastal regulation zones (Non-CRZ) soon. The scrutiny of applications for sand mining is going on,” he said, adding that the entire process will be transparent. On allowing sand mining on CRZs, the DC said there is a need to reduce sand mining activities in eco-sensitive regions. He said the district administration will restrict sand mining in CRZs considering the sensitive nature of the area. Hence, there will be restrictions in granting permits for sand mining in CRZs. The department of mines and geology had invited applications from traditional contractors to extract sand manually from 20 identified sand bars in CRZs of the district. In the first phase, the department has issued 41 permits for the same.

Mines and geology department deputy director Sumithra said the department has not received guidelines from the government to issue permits to extract sand from Non-CRZs. Permits will be issued soon after receiving guidelines, she added.