Shortage of sand to delay work on 160 new roads

Chief engineer (roads) Satish Badve said the BMC has asked the recently appointed quality auditors Swiss firm SGS Ltd and IIT’s Professor K V Krishnarao to take a joint decision on what will be the best solution in this scenario. Waiting for the sand issue to get resolved at the state level will take time and the BMC cannot afford to wait till then to start work. “The tender conditions provide for the option of using alternative materials instead of sand. But to maintain the same quality as rendered by fine river bed sand,contractors will have to use the best quality of these alternatives. We are awaiting the joint decision from IIT and SGS,after which we will decide the further course of action,” he said.

Standing technical advisory committee chairman N V Merani said good quality of crushed sand or artificial sand can be used,but it can never match up to river bed sand,which is of the best quality.

However,a contractor who has bagged one of the cement concrete road contracts,said crushed sand when used in large quantities is more expensive than sand and it will lead to cost escalation. “Crushed sand is substituted when the requirement is small. But in this case,our work cannot progress without sand and we will need it in large quantities,which will obviously be more expensive. The BMC does not want to let the cost rise. They need to act soon because even if we start work at the earliest,we will manage to complete only about 70 per cent before next monsoon,” he said.