India News | Free Sand Royalty Receipts to Be Delivered to Beneficiaries of Housing Schemes: Bawankule

Mumbai, May 14 (PTI) Maharashtra Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Wednesday directed officials to ensure that royalty receipts for free sand are delivered to beneficiaries of housing schemes within eight days, amid complaints of delays.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sanctioned 30 lakh houses for Maharashtra. The state government has adopted a policy to provide free sand for these houses. However, complaints have been received that the sand is not reaching the beneficiaries.

Also Read | Bird Flu Scare in Uttar Pradesh: All Zoos Shut, Central Authority Constitutes 5-Member Panel.

"The royalty receipts for free sand must be delivered to the beneficiaries of housing schemes through local development officers within eight days."

Bawankule chaired a review meeting on the sand policy implementation here. Minister of State for Finance and Planning Ashish Jaiswal, MLA Ashish Deshmukh, and Additional Chief Secretary of the Revenue Department Rajesh Kumar participated.

Also Read | India-Pakistan Tension: JNU Suspends MoU With Turkish Inonu University After Turkiye's Backing to Pakistan.

He said tehsildars should coordinate with Block Development Officers and ensure that royalty receipts for sand are delivered to all beneficiaries at their doorstep through the village development officer.

Bawankule said district collectors should hold meetings with guardian ministers, while tehsildars consult local MLAs to allocate sand according to demand.

"Any lapse by officers will not be tolerated," he added.

He warned of action against officials if complaints related to revenue and sand supply are raised during the upcoming monsoon session.

Regarding artificial sand, Bawankule said that permission would be given to set up 50 new crushers in the districts.

He said officers will be provided adequate protection, and any attacks on them will not be tolerated.

Bawankule stated that if someone needs to extract minor minerals while constructing a house, royalty should be collected from them at the time of map approval.

"Out of 140 sand depots in Maharashtra, 91 are operational. Incidents of sand theft are being reported in some places," he said.

Referring to a recent incident, the minister said, "Two days ago, a tehsildar in Jalna had to open fire".

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)