Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Dec 24: Congress corporators of the city corporation here participated in the general session of the council by wearing black clothes on Friday December 23. They expressed in unison, their anger at the corporation’s failure to maintain and repair inner roads, footpaths, drains etc in the city.

The session was chaired by city mayor, Praveen Anchan. Opposition leader, Lancelot Pinto, who raised the topic immediately after the session was called to order, pointed out that inner roads of the city are in a despicable state and that the corporation administration had failed to respond to the party’s repeated demand for repairing them. Former mayor, Shashidhar Hegde, also said that the corporation should not feel complacent by just building concrete roads, and asked it to pay equal attention to the repair and maintenance of minor roads. Other members of the opposition also came together in front of the mayor’s seat to show their solidarity with this demand.

Praveen convinced the corporators to return to their seats, by promising to convene a meeting of contractors within a week towards taking steps to asphalt roads in all the wards.

Lancelot Pinto also pointed out that in many areas including Bejai KSRTC bus stand, footpaths had not been constructed, although cement roads had been laid  long ago. He said that frequent accidents are occurring at these roads, and that six vehicles had fallen into the roadside ditch because of the absence of footpaths, during the last three months. He alleged that step-motherly treatment was being meted out to wards represented by  Congress corporators.

Chief whip of the council, Sudhir Shetty Kannur, insisted that the corporation has treated every corporator equally, and that Rs 25 lac for each of the wards had been released. Premanand Shetty supported him, by pointing out that development works were in progress in all the wards.

Former mayor, Shankar Bhat, suggested for giving contract work of managing street lights to different contractors by dividing the city into different segments. Deepak Poojary demanded to enlist erring contractors under black list.

BJP corporator, Ganesh Hosabettu, raised the topic of a person named Manjunath, an MCF employee, who had come to the session with a bottle of poison. He said that Manjunath approached the hall of the corporation during tea time, and told him that he would consume poison, having been unable to procure licence to build his house. When questioned, town planning officer said he is not aware of the case, and that if the person approaches him, suitable action would be taken.

City corporation commissioner, Harish Kumar, and deputy mayor, Geeta Nayak, were present.