Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Sep 17: At last, the centre appears to have woken up to the sufferings the people of the coastal districts have been going through, because of the extensive damages suffered by the highways here, caused by the movement of heavy vehicles like ore trucks and heavy rains, compounded by the apathy of the highways department to maintain them.

Manoj Kumar, chief engineer of the union national highways ministry, inspected the damage to national highway 48 on Tuesday September 15, and national highway 17 on Wednesday. It may be recalled, that a delegation of the Save National Highway Committee, led by MLA Gopal Bhandary, had met union law minister M Veerappa Moily on September 11, to impress upon him the need to repair and maintain the highways urgently. The minister had immediately summoned additional secretary in the department of highways and briefed him on the issue. Manoj Kumar too was a party to the said discussions, a release by the said committee informed.

Manoj Kumar, who held talks with the members of the committee near Mulky, explained to them the details of discussions he had with the minister. State highways department chief engineer O K Swamy, regional officer Gangadhar, superintending engineer Jagadishwar and executive engineer Krishna Gowda accompanied Kumar.

Committee members B Govindaraj Hegde, Ramesh Kotian, Sadanand Chatra, Ambagil Vijay Hegde and Vasant Shetty held talks with Manoj Kumar.