Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Jun 14: A meeting held at the hall of the deputy commissioner’s office here on Monday June 13 failed to arrive at an amicable solution relating to the problem of constructing a bypass road at Mulky as part of the national highway 66 development plan.

Dakshina Kannada MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel, said after the meeting, that spot inspection to decide about alternative strategies that can be considered, will be conducted on June 20.

MLA, Abhaychandra jain, expressed concerns about emotions of the people getting flared up if the bypass construction work results in damage to the ancient Bappanadu Goddess Durgaparameshwari Temple, which stands by the side of the road. He asked the concerned to respect the popular sentiments, and construct a fly over on Suratkal model.

Director of National Highways Authority of India said that for Mulky town, three alternatives have been presently proposed. One of them is building of a 60 metre wide highway at Mulky, the other being 45 metre wide highway. These proposals are in addition to the original proposal for bypass road. He felt that widening of the current highway envisages demolition of a number of commercial buildings. “This stretch has been identified as the corridor with highest vehicular density. Hence, the highway is required to be designed for 100 kms per hour speed. If we drop the bypass road proposal, the speed of vehicles will drop to 65 kms per hour, for which the National Highways Authority will not give its nod. Even if construction of fly over is accepted as an alternative, commercial buildings will have to be vacated to pave way for laying of the service road, which is mandatory,” he explained.

Jain, expressing his dissent, insisted that a lone building will lose its existence if fly over is built. He felt that the officials have been depicting a wrong picture. B Nagaraj Shetty also suggested for shelving the land acquisition proceedings at Bappanadu, and favoured consideration of alternative options.

District deputy commissioner, Dr N S Channappa Gowda, drew the attention of the concerned to the fact that there is a proposal to build a bypass at Bappanadu without harming the car street of the temple, and expressed himself in favour of conducting a survey to assess the viability of this proposal. The MP finally announced that a decision would be taken after undertaking spot inspection on June 20.