Official schedules of rates put the red soil price, for red earth or murrum used as filling, at about ₹300 to ₹600 a cubic metre before GST. Puducherry’s PSR 2024-25 lists earth for filling (red earth) at ₹550 a cubic metre at site, Maharashtra prices murum at ₹313 to ₹316 at the quarry, and Chhattisgarh’s June 2026 road schedule ₹334 with royalty included. A 10-tonne truck carries 6 cubic metres in Maharashtra’s schedules, so the haul and royalty often cost as much as the soil.

A builder in Chennai asks for “one load of red soil”, a supplier in Pune quotes “murum per brass”, and a road contractor in Raipur prices “moorum per cum”. All three are buying much the same thing: red or reddish earth and soft gravel for filling, plinths, sub-grade and embankments. State public works departments price it every year in their schedules of rates, and those schedules also state how much one truck carries and what the government takes as royalty.

Red soil price in state schedules of rates

Every rate below is printed in the schedule named, per cubic metre, excluding GST. Read the basis column before comparing two states.

Schedule (effective date) Item ₹ per cum Basis
Puducherry PSR 2024-25 (14 Aug 2024) Earth for filling (red earth) 550 At site of work; excludes GST and contractor’s profit
Puducherry PSR 2024-25 Gravel; selected earth for refilling 500 At site
Tamil Nadu SOR 2025-26 (22 Jul 2025) Gravel 222.70 Basic rate with loading and unloading; levies listed separately
Maharashtra PWD SSR 2022-23 (25 Jul 2022) Soft murum / hard murum 313 / 316 At quarry, 50 m lead; royalty paid separately
Uttarakhand PWD, Roorkee block, revised 2024-25 (24 Aug 2024) Moorum at site; selected earth 385; 250 Royalty included in the basic cost
Chhattisgarh PWD road SOR (15 Jun 2026) Moorum, supplied with all lead 334 Royalty and DMF included
Haryana HSR 2021 Moorum at site 600 Older edition

Puducherry is the only schedule that uses the words “red earth”, which suits buyers in Chennai and the rest of Tamil Nadu, where the term is common. Tamil Nadu’s own schedule groups hard red earth with murram and gravel as one soil class, and Odisha’s 2022 schedule puts red earth under ordinary or hard soil the same way. For pricing, red soil, murrum and gravel filling sit in one band.

How much red soil is in one load

“Per load” is how most red soil is sold, and it is the unit that causes most arguments. The schedules give an official answer for a truck:

  • Maharashtra’s PWD SSR 2022-23 works its carriage on a 10-tonne truck, with a load factor of 6 cubic metres for murum, building rubbish and earth.
  • Maharashtra’s Water Resources schedule of rates 2023-24 lists the same truck capacity: 6.00 cubic metres for murum and earth.
  • Odisha’s schedule of rates 2022 takes a ten-tonne truck as carrying 5.5 cubic metres of gravel, sand and surki.
  • Uttarakhand prices tippers by size class: 5.5, 10, 14 and 18 cubic metres.

So a “load” from a 10-tonne tipper is about 5.5 to 6 cubic metres. A tractor trolley is a much smaller load. Before you agree a per-load price, ask how many cubic metres it holds, or measure the body. Our note on soil filling rate per cft explains why the loose volume you buy is always more than the compacted volume you are paid for.

What goes into the price of one load

The soil itself is often the smaller part. Maharashtra’s SSR 2022-23 lets you build one truck load from its own figures. This is a worked example using the schedule’s numbers, not a quote:

Line (one 6 cum truck, 10 km lead) ₹ From the SSR
Murum at the quarry, 6 × ₹316 1,896 Basic rate, hard murum
Loading by loader and carriage for 10 km 1,985 Statement C-1: ₹1,984.62 a trip, includes loader hire
Royalty with 2% surcharge, 6 × ₹216.18 1,297 ₹600 a brass, which the SSR equates to ₹211.95 a cubic metre
Total before GST and profit about 5,178 2022-23 rates; diesel taken at ₹102.88 a litre

At 10 km the carriage already matches the cost of the murum. At 50 km the SSR’s own carriage figure rises to ₹5,109.53 a trip, nearly three times the soil. That is why red soil from the nearest borrow area wins almost every time, and why the trucking side is worth costing on its own. Compare tippers and dump trucks by payload and body size if you haul your own.

Loading is usually done by a backhoe or a wheel loader. Maharashtra’s schedule prices a loader at ₹968 an hour, which works out to ₹646 a trip in its carriage table. A backhoe such as the JCB 3DX is the common choice on smaller sites.

Royalty and levies on red soil, by state

Red soil, murrum and ordinary earth are minor minerals, so the state charges royalty or seigniorage on every load taken out of the ground. Each state sets its own rate and unit:

  • Telangana: ₹26 a tonne on morram, gravel and ordinary earth, from 8 July 2025 (G.O.Ms.No.14). It was ₹20 a tonne from 2022.
  • Andhra Pradesh: ₹55 a tonne on morrum, gravel and ordinary earth, from 26 June 2025 (G.O.MS.No.100).
  • Maharashtra: ₹600 a brass, cited in the SSR from the 4 June 2021 gazette, paid separately from the schedule rate.
  • Tamil Nadu: the 2025-26 schedule prints the levies on gravel and earth per cubic metre, at ₹56 seigniorage, ₹5.60 for the District Mineral Foundation, ₹5.60 Green Fund and ₹85 land-bearing cost, ₹152.20 in all, to be added to the base cost.

Added to Tamil Nadu’s ₹222.70 for gravel, those levies give ₹374.90 a cubic metre before transport and GST. How royalty is recovered on a works contract is covered in royalty on earthwork, and the state-by-state rules in our guide to royalty on minerals.

Buying red soil without overpaying

Agree the unit first: cubic metres, brass or loads with a stated volume. Ask whether the price is at the pit or delivered, and whether royalty has been paid on the load. Several states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh among them, require a transit pass with every dispatch of minerals, so ask for it. Finally, price the haul against a closer source; a borrow area 10 km nearer can save more than any discount on the soil.

The bottom line

On the official record, the red soil price for filling sits around ₹300 to ₹600 a cubic metre before GST, with Puducherry’s red earth at ₹550 at site and Maharashtra’s murum at ₹316 at the quarry. A 10-tonne truck holds about 6 cubic metres, and by the time royalty and a 10 km haul are added, the load costs more than twice the soil in it. The Tamil Nadu Schedule of Rates 2025-26 and the Maharashtra PWD SSR 2022-23 are the two documents to open first.

If you supply filling soil yourself, the tipper and loader are the business. Line up equipment finance for them, and find earthwork jobs among live tenders and project opportunities.

Rates here are as printed in the schedules named, on the dates shown, and are indicative of what a department estimates, not a market quote. Local prices change with distance, season and royalty revisions. Confirm the current rate with your supplier or contractor, and the royalty with your district mining office, before you buy or bid.