YSR Congress has said TDP was backing the irregularities in sand mining to help the mafia affecting the revenues to the state exchequer.”TDP government has drastically increased the prices of sand. It is not getting reflected in the books as a major chunk went into the pockets of the ruling party coterie,” party spokesperson Ambati Rambabu said Saturday.

“The State had increased the price of sand from Rs 40 per cubic meter to Rs Rs 600 which is a 17 times increase. Chief Minister had said that the increased tariff would fetch the Government a revenue of over Rs 3,000 crores but the figure shown in the records was just Rs 500 crores. And the remaining amount has gone into the accounts of his coterie,” he said. Ambati asked chief minister to explain this to public. He said the so called whitepaper on Sand Policy was only to divert the attention of the public from the scam involved in the sand mining. ” The White Paper has whitewashed everything,” he said.