The administration of Kerala's Thrissur district has successfully implemented a centralized reservation system to bring down the price of sand, which had been controlled by mafia of sand miners and lorry owners.
With the use of a centralized reservation system, customers can buy sand directly from the district revenue department. The district unit of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) developed the software for the reservation system called SAND System for Normal Attumanal (river sand) Distribution). Under the new system, people are allowed to reserve sand at a mining point of their choice by paying a fee. As they pay a fee, a token is issued to customer. The software checks the availability of sand in a particular spot and allots a date for sand collection. A customer can reserve a maximum of eight truckloads and they will get eight tokens for it. The computer will allot only one truckload in three days. Currently, customers are charged INR 2,040 per truck load of sand, including the loading charges. The customer has to arrange for the transport of sand and the end price is largely ruled by conveyance charge. In Thrissur district, there are around 20 sand mining points and only 325 truckloads are allowed to be extracted in a day.
