A few days ago, Urimajalu Ram Bhat, senior politician of the district, while addressing people who were demanding repair of the Shiradi Ghat road had said “ People should take to the streets and raise a clamour if the Ghat road should be made motorable.â€
His statement need not be applicable merely to the Shiradi road.
When people have to raise a clamour for the government to wake up from its slumber, it only reflects the inefficiency of the administrative machinery. If at all the government wakes up from its slumber, then the public has to be appreciated for it. There have even been instances when the government had responded to any problem only when the agitation turned violent.
It’s been almost four years since it was announced that the Mangalore –Bangalore National Highway would be made a four-lane. Muniappa from our own state who was a minister holding highway portfolio during the regime of the erstwhile UPA government, was fully aware of the sorry state of the Shiradi Ghat road. There was even pressure from the party workers as well as the lay men to free this road from its bad state. Had the government taken up the four-laning of the Ghat road covering a stretch of 30 kms then itself, the work would have been almost compete by now. But Muniappa lacked the will-power in this regard.
What has been going on since the past four years is repair and patch works on the road, while there had been no real and concerted effort to develop this vital link between Mangalore and Bangalore. What the government had been doing was releasing a few lakhs or a crore for the repair or the patch works, and the roads reverting to their old state very soon.
In this backdrop, it was amusing to hear a statement from district minister Palemar recently that a sum of Rs 1.3 crore had been released for the repair of this road. It is nothing but tragic that those at the helm of affairs in the administration are in no mood to learn lessons from the earlier mistakes.
Even if the government is not interested in doing much, it can at least concretize the existing road immediately. What is hindering the government from releasing a few hundred crores for the works ?
The time is opportune for the people of the coastal districts to launch a massive movement to pressurize the government to make all the Ghat roads motorable. It is also the right time to urge the government to constitute a separate corporation empowered with the responsibility of laying and maintaining Ghat roads.
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