From Malaysia, first load of river sand comes to Ennore Port
Posted on: 24/Sep/2018 9:55:19 AM
On Sunday, 23rd September 2018, the first load of river sand imported from Malaysia by the state government arrived at Ennore Port present at the outskirts of Chennai. This importing of river sand from Malaysia was done to overcome the shortage of the river sand.
At around 1:30 am on Sunday, Kamarajar Port was buzzing with many activities as the vessel M. V. Aurelia with 56750 tonnes of river sand reached the port and unloading of the river sand started around 4:30 am in the morning. This unloading of the river sand would take as many as 3 days and the sand would be heaped on the 1.5 acres of land inside the port premises. The river sand from the ship would be scooped by huge mechanical claws and then the sand would be loaded to tipper trucks. Finally the trucks would spread the sand over the 1.5 acres. The superb piece of information is the state government would permit the trucks to take the sand from the port beginning from 2nd of October.
Later this week, the online booking of river sand would start. It is now revealed that PWD would be fixing an amount of Rs 10000 for one unit of sand (4.5 tonnes) and this PWD has only got rights to sell the river sand. At the port, a lorry load of sand would cost Rs 20,000 and depending on the distance the transport charges would be different. One important point to note is due to rough or bad weather the vessel from Malaysia which was supposed to reach Kamarajar Port on Friday morning was delayed by 48 hours. According to some port sources it is clear that importer is ready to bring atleast one vessel per week. For supplying 5 lakh tonnes of river sand every month for a time of 2 years, PWD had floated tenders in the month of March is known.
