Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Jan 15: Sources in the city corporation agree that there is dearth of funds for executing the ambitious bus stand project near Pumpwell in the city. It is learnt that discussions held by the district administration officials led by district deputy commissioner, Subodh Yadav, on Thursday January 13, centred around this topic.

Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environment Management Project (KUDCEMP) superintending engineer, Maninarayan, also clarified during discussions that further works will be hard to conduct unless funds required for land acquisition are transferred to the concerned department. He is presently in-charge executive engineer at the city corporation.

City corporation commissioner, K N Vijayaprakash, also agreed that there is shortage of funds, saying that in addition to seven acres of land already acquired for the bus stand, 11.18 acres of land are needed to be acquired. He expressed helpless about being unable to pool funds from any other source for the project.

The suggestion of the deputy commissioner to set up private bus stand initially at the project site did not get the support of the advisor to the engineering department, Dharmaraj. He said that it would be improper to modify the project from the present public-private partnership basis, as shopping complexes set up at the bus stand will benefit the corporation. As Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation will be building a bus stand for its buses at Pumpwell, it was decided to request KSRTC to fund the amount required for land acquisition for its bus stand.

Assistant executive engineer, Gopal Gowda, pointed out that as per tender, the work of building vented dam across River Netravati at Tumbe for drinking water needs, should have been completed by January, but even half of the dam has not yet been completed. The commissioner wanted to know why there is delay, even after a sum of seven crore rupees was deposited by the corporation towards the project cost of Rs 41 crore. The deputy commissioner decided to visit the site for inspection, and to find out reasons for the delay.