Sand is one of the most important materials used in construction engineering. Traditionally, most of the sand required for construction activities is obtained in the form of river sand. Over the past few decades, excessive mining of river sand has led to major environmental concerns and alternative sources for sand were being explored. Marine sand was identified as a potential alternative for river sand. In this study, marine sand collected from near Puri beach in Odisha was chosen against Mahanadi River sand as an alternative engineering material. Several tests such as specific gravity, grain size analysis, shear strength test, relative density test, pH test and CBR tests were performed on the marine sand and river sand samples. Next, 3-day and 7-day compressive strength tests were also performed on cement-sand mortar cubes prepared from marine sand and river sand. The tests showed that geotechnical parameters of the marine and river sands such as specific gravity, angle of internal friction, CBR value and grain size distribution were comparable. However, the compressive strength of mortar cubes prepared from marine sand was observed to be lower. Using the water wash method and alternate drying and soaking, the salt content of the marine sand was brought down. The compressive strength of the mortar cubes subjected to three cycles of washing was found to be comparable to those cast from river sand. This way the study showed that Puri marine sand can be potentially used as an alternative construction material and for geotechnical applications.