The Construction owners, builders, contractors and local sand and boulders agents in Gelegphu are troubled by the recently announced rates for sand and boulder. They say the revision is almost 100 percent.
The revision came this month while manual loading was also banned of the same from the Mao River bed.
The previous royalty for collecting boulders from the Mao River bed was only about Nu.500, excluding loading. The new rate for boulders, including machine loading, by the Natural Resources Development Corporation Limited (NRDCL) Range office is more than Nu.2,000.
“The revised rate will make it very difficult for us now,” said Kinley Wangdi, a contractor.
The problem does not end there for the contractors. “We would get our specific requirements when we were allowed to lift our own boulders, but with the NRDCL machine loading, we get huge boulders which are humanly impossible to work with. We need machines to break the boulders,” said another contractor, Phurba.
He said manual every individual would get the required size of 40 mm when the loading is done manually.
The Manager of the NRDCL Range office in Gelegphu explained that the rates have been revised after complaints from the three gewogs of Chhuzanggang,Gelegphu and Serzhong that there was rampant and uncontrolled collection of boulders and sand from the area.
He added that the ban on manual loading will check the illegal collection of boulders and sand from undesignated areas. The NRDCL Gelegphu Range office supplies about 40 truckloads of sand and boulders daily.
