Kundapur: Shiroor goes on protest over poor condition of highway

Silvester D’Souza
Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur

Kundapur, Nov 23: The residents of Shiroor rose in protest against the poor condition and delay in repair works of the national highway.

From the past several months, commuters have been finding it difficult to travel due to the poor condition of the road from Byndoor to Shiroor. The elected representatives and officials had assured that the repair work would start from November 15.

But as the work got delayed, people came forward to stage a protest on Friday November 22.

The repair work on the highway from Shiroor Sunkadagundi was worse. In addition, only gravel stones and mud were scattered on the highway making commuting even more difficult. As the repair work which started after several months of delay was not done properly, people joined hands and protested.

Condemning the poor quality of repair work, a rally was taken from Kelapete to the town.

Shops closed

Shopkeepers, who were tired of the dust rising from the roads, closed their shops and joined the protest. All the shops in Shiroor and market road area were closed. The protestors demanded the officials to re-tar the road, and warned of keeping up the protest until they received clear justification on the matter.

'Appropriate work from Sunday'

Responding to people’s problems, NH Kundapur zone engineer Y Krishna Rao said the tender process for Kundapur-Goa four lane work has been completed. "For complete re-tarring of road, the department is short of funds. The tender process of repair work is in the final stage. Hence only patch work is possible," he said.

To this, the protestors took the department officials to task and said that they would stop protesting only if the officials repaired the road properly. Later, the engineer contacted the contractor and other officials over the phone and assured people to start re-tarring of the road in some of the highly damaged places from Sunday.