Pics: Umesh Marpalli

Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Sep 7: The zilla panchayat here, at its general session held on Thursday September 6, decided against collection of toll charges for vehicles bearing registration number pertaining to this district, at Sasthan and Hejamady tollgates built across national highway 66.

Member, Janardhana Thonse, raised the topic at the meeting held at Rajathadri, Manipal. He drew the attention of the concerned about unjustified collection of toll charges at the above two tollgates for local vehicles. He said that the tollgates have now stopped collecting charges because of protests. He urged the ZP to see that there is no provision for collection of toll charges from vehicles bearing registration numbers beginning with KA 20 at these two tollgates.

Engineer of National Highways Authority of India, Gururaj, clarified that at present, fee is not being collected for vehicles bearing registration number beginning with KA 20.

ZP member, Reshma Uday Shetty, drew the attention of the meeting to the fact that a new tollgate has been constructed on Hejamady gram panchayat road where toll collection is being conducted. She wanted to know who gave this power to the tollgate officials to do so, and pointed out that local taxi drivers are facing lot of problems because of this tollgate. She said that this happens to be an unscientific tollgate built without any permission from either public works department or local gram panchayat.

In reply, engineer of Navayuga Company, which holds contract, said that the said tollgate has been constructed within the 60 metre land acquired by the national highways authority, and that collects charges here only from heavy vehicles. He said that permission from the deputy commissioner of the district and principal secretary have been obtained for this tollgate.

Janardhana Thonse said that in some schools, headmasters have been getting illiterate parents as members of school development and monitoring committees to get the bills passed as per their convenience. He said that the right to appoint members should therefore be given to gram panchayats. Chairman of education and health standing committee, Babu Shetty, opined that gram panchayat need not be allowed any interference in school affairs, and members should be selected in the meeting of parents.

Zilla panchayat vice president, Sheela Shetty, chairman of social justice committee, Shashikanth Padubidri, and chief project officer, Srinivas Rao, were present.