Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (HB)

Udupi, May 11: District BJP president, Mattaru Ratnakar Hegde, speaking at the press meet held at the BJP office Kadiyali here on May 10, pointed out that there are 31 BJP councilors out of 35 in the local city municipal council. "The people have been pressurizing our party representatives to get their work done. But unfortunately, the newly elected members have not been administered oath of office even eight months after their election. People are getting frustrated at the BJP leaders, as they feel that BJP is in power in the local body with majority councillors representing BJP," he stated.

There is severe shortage of water in the city. Some wards have not got water supply since the last seven to eight days. The MLA of Udupi has made arrangements to supply water through tankers, spending money from his own pocket, Hegde added.

Mattaru squarely blamed the district administration for lacking the will to handle the     situation. "The district administration should have begun the process of water administration since the month of January this year. The district administration has now started responding to the problem but the deputy commissioner (DC) and municipal commissioner are owning callous attitude," he said..

In relation to the missing 'Suvarna Tribhuja' fishing boat, wreckage of which were recovered from near Malvan, Mattaru said, “Union defense minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, MP, Shobha Karandlaje, and Udupi MLA Raghupati Bhat, have put lot of efforts towards locating the boat. It was confirmed by naval team too. Therefore, those fishermen families should get maximum compensation from the government. We will visit New Delhi in an effort to maximise compensation amount, although we are aware that any amount of compensation cannot match the loss suffered by the families. A precious life cannot be compensated in terms of money. If the boat is lifted out from the bottom of the sea, there is a possibility of getting more clues about what would have happened on that fateful day with the boat and its fishermen," he said.

Hegde said that frequent efforts are being made to by a section of the press to suppress the voices of the journalists in various places, and termed it as unfair.

"Chief minister, Kumaraswamy, and H D Deve Gowda family have been going from one resort to another one, besides getting busy performing puja at temples. As such the administrative machinery has collapsed in the state. But the chief minister is away and has not been responding to requests for distribution of drought relief fund," Ratnakar Hegde claimed.

"Another burning issue is sand crisis, which has got stranded at the point where it had reached earlier. We do not have power in our hands, otherwise we would have solved it," Hegde stated.

Commenting on DC's master plan for the city, Mattaru said that until and unless government officials do not have the will power, nothing can be done. "Let her manage the current situation before taking up the master plan," he commented.

Mattaru said, "The DC has not been allowing the offices of the zilla panchayat president and others to be functional, citing election code of conduct. She has not returned zilla panchayat president's car too. If rain comes, sand cannot be extracted. As zilla panchayat office stands closed, even emergency applications cannot be disposed off," he explained.

BJP general secretaries, Yashpal Suvarna, and Naveen Kuthyar, zilla panchayat president, Dinakar Babu, zilla panchayat vice president, Sheela K Shetty, women's morcha district president, Nayana Ganesh, Sandhya Ramesh, Shivakumar Ambalpady etc were present.