On March 17, 2021, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court passed an order directing the State authorities to ensure that river sand for construction purposes was supplied only when the buyer produced an approved building plan. The court issued the guidelines while disposing of a couple of writ petitions accusing officials of colluding with lorry owners in the sale of sand and seeking directions to enable members of the public to buy sand through the Tamil Nadu Sand Web Service Portal.
Acting on this directive, the Tamil Nadu government passed an order months later, rolling out a Standard Operating Procedure for the sale of river sand. The order said the cost of sand at the river bed or at a sand quarry would be ₹1,000 per unit. It was made clear that to buy sand, the purchaser would have to make an online booking by uploading the building plan approval. Customers were given the option of remitting cash at bank counters that were proposed to be established at stockyards or depots.
All sand quarries and stockyards, managed by the Water Resources Department (WRD), would be monitored through CCTV cameras with 24/7 live streaming and all shunting vehicles would be monitored real time with the GPS and prefixed geofence to prevent pilferage. A centralised control room would be established to monitor sand mining and sale throughout the State, the order said. The order was followed closely by a press statement from Minister for Water Resources M. Duraimurugan. He said members of the public could buy sand online from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the quantum of sand left thereafter would be made available to lorry owners from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
