Central team visits Bantwal to inspect damaged roads, plantations

Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal

Bantwal, Sep 25: A research team led by union home minister’s joint secretary R K Srivastav visited the district on Tuesday September 24 and inspected several places in Bantwal taluk. They inspected problems caused due to rot disease affecting crops and roads damaged due to rains.

Arrangements were made for the research team to visit several villages in the taluk. On Tuesday, the team visited Bantwal wherein they inspected the arecanut plantations in Nalkemar and roads of Kempugudde, after which they returned.

The team came to Bantwal via Polali-Kaikamba road and visited Nalkemar where they inspected arecanut plantations belonging to Richard Monteiro, Veronica D’Souza, Alwyn D’Souza, Alphonse D’Souza and others. These plantations were affected from rotting disease. The officials in the team got down from the vehicle only at one spot and held discussion with farmers, it is learnt.

Later, the team inspected the damaged bridge in Kempugudde road and Neravimochana road. A few farmers were waiting for the research team to talk to them, but the team visited only a few places and soon left for Puttur. Sources said that in Puttur too the team made only a cursory inspection of the plantations beside the road and checked the status of only the main roads. The team did not visit places that are highly affected, it is alleged. The team also refused to answer the questions of mediapersons, and later left for Madikeri.

Puttur MLA Shakantula Shetty too expressed unhappiness over the way the inspection was conducted by the team, and said that being the local MLA, she was informed about their visit only at the last minute. "Still, I asked the team to visit the highly affected areas, but they did not do so, and did not even give me satisfactory answers," she said, describing the visit as 'they came, they went.'

The team consisted of transport and highway regional officer Sanjay Gargar, planning commission senior researcher Muralidharan and Chennai Tobacco Development Society director K Manoharan.

Deputy commissioner N Prakash, zilla panchayat CEO Tulasi Maddideni, horticulture department district deputy director H R Yogesh, Mangalore assistant commissioner Prashanth, taluk tahsildar Malleswami, Sanjeeva Nayak among others were present and briefed the team about the problems faced by the taluk.

We have given complete information – DC

During the inspection in Nalkemar, speaking to media persons DC N Prakash said "We have informed the central research team about the problems faced by the district due to rain. We have contacted every taluk and inspected the farms which faced problems. Estimation of the loss due to damaged roads has also been submitted to the team."