R B Jagadish
Daijiworld Media Network – Karkala (EP)

Karkala, Dec 22: The engineer at the town municipal council has finally got the heap of gravel stones removed from the road after MLA Sunil Kumar took him to task during the quarterly KDP meeting. The meeting was held on Thursday, December 19.

The road passing through Bhavani mill junction to the town was closed for traffic from February 7 this year due to the damaged road.  An ongoing dispute between the PWD and the town municipal council regarding repairs to the road had caused the problem.

The road passing in front of Bhavani mill belongs to the PWD. As the road was damaged, PWD had come forward to repair and increase its height. However the adjacent low road under the jurisdiction of the town municipality was left in the damaged condition. So the surrounding area used to be full of dust due to vehicles passing by. The well water in the vicinity turned muddy. The local people who were fed up with the situation protested against it with the help of a political party. Thereafter, traffic on the road was stopped as per the demands of the protesters.

Gravel stones donated by the people were piled up beside the road but the question of who was responsible for the repair work remained.

MLA Sunil Kumar asked the municipality engineer why he did not get the gravel stones on the road removed despite his orders some time ago.  He said that he would speak to the deputy commissioner and that the PWD has to repair the road.

Though the engineer got the gravel stones removed, it is still unclear when the remaining work would be undertaken.