Daijiworld Media Network – Karkala (SP)

Karkala, Dec 1: The general session of the local municipality, convened on Wednesday November 30, was cancelled, after both the opposition and ruling party councilors walked out.

As soon as the session met, opposition leader, Navinchandra Hegde, blamed the municipal administration for failing to repair the main road since the last four years. He said that the first president of the municipality had earmarked Rs 1.5 crore for developing the main road from Bhavani Circle to Bandimutt and also for building a drain at Salmara. He said the next president changed the action plan, and the present administration has not been responding to the problems expressed by the opposition. The opposition members then walked out of the session. The members then held in dharna outside the venue of the meeting, and raised slogans against the municipality.

In response, municipal president, Pratima Mohan, accused the officials of not cooperating with the administration in development works, and also of taking one-sided decisions without bringing to her notice. Accusing officials of non-cooperation, ruling party councilors also walked out of the session. They too sat in dharna outside and raised slogans against officials.

Addressing press conferences later, both Pratima Mohan and Navinchandra Hegde repeated the above charges.

By way of clarification, municipal chief officer, Gopalakrishna Shetty, said that a sum of one crore rupees had been released for road widening from out of SFC Fund, and that an amount of Rs 30 lac has been spent towards compensation and eviction procedures.  He added that an action plan proposal with an outlay of an additional amount of two crore rupees had been sent to the government through the deputy commissioner, and no grant had so far been released by the government thereof.