The Hindu

Mangalore, Jun 16: The term of the Council of the Mangalore City Corporation will end on June 16. The body was elected in 2002 with Shashidhar Hegde as the first Mayor of the present term and had K. Diwakar, Purandardas Kulur, K. Ashraf and Vijaya Arun as subsequent Mayors. The last five years have been a mixed bag with regard to its performance but a few failures are glaring.

Of the 60 corporators only a handful were seasoned corporators like former Mayor Krishnappa Mendon, Abdul Aziz, M. Farooq, Rajani Dugganna and James D’Souza who have had served in more terms. The rest were young and many were first-timers.

The Council did not use its power to solve several issues, one of which is the second vented dam across the Nethravati. Despite having the opportunity to get this project cleared from the Government, the Council did not and instead argued over the issue endlessly.

For the first two years the Congress ruled the Council and had an advantage with the Dharam Singh led Congress Government in the State. Several other issues that did not materialise in the last five years of the Council’s term include paid parking slots in the city, clearance of unauthorised construction, removal of encroachments in market areas and over storm water drains, failure to introduce house-to-house collection of garbage under the Nirmala Nagara Yojana in all parts of the city uniformly, and improve and preserve parks and open spaces.
Opposition’s view

Listing the failures of the Council, Opposition (Bharatiya Janata Party) leader Shankar Bhat said the ruling party lacked the political will to get the work done and none of the Mayors and committee chairpersons had control over the bureaucracy . One of the most important failures was to prevent corruption, Mr. Bhat charged. Former Chief Whip of the Council Mahabala Maarla told The Hindu that many in this Council had taken up social empowerment programmes such as the Jalabhagya Pro ject for drinking water for the poor, the Bhagyajyothi project to ensure power supply for the poor, installation of streetlights in underdeveloped areas, providing scholarships for SC/ST students and bringing in transparency in administration through computerisation and strictly implementing the Right to Information Act.

People in Mangalore may however remember this Council for two major developments in the city, firstly, concrete roads and secondly improvement in water distribution in certain areas.

Three major roads have been concretised with high mast electrification and medians. The city is also equipped with 800 kilometres of pipelines that has supplied water to many previously uncovered areas.