'16 labs will be set up to monitor quality of roads'

District administration, elected reps to hold padayatra today

Addressing a press meet here on Tuesday, he said one centre will start functioning on Wednesday onwards in Puttur, while four more apart from a master lab will be set up in Mangalore. Udupi will house seven labs and Madikeri will have three labs. “It will be an apolitical centre with qualified technical staff, which will take up third party inspection of the roads,” he said.

Pucca houses

Chikmagalur-Udupi MP D V Sadananda Gowda has said that State government is contemplating to build pukka houses in the flood affected districts to provide permanent reliefs to the victims. In this regard government is emphasising on the quality of the houses and has decided that the houses built either by the government or by other organisations should be built at the cost of not less then Rs 1 lakh. He said that there is no point building houses at lower cost as it will collapse sooner or later. Government has decided to provide strong houses in the affected areas as it was done in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Gowda said that a talk was held by the Government with corporate companies, industries and mutts who have agreed to lend their support to the Government both in terms of cash and kind.

Shiroor mutt has agreed to build 5,000 houses at a cost of Rs 50 crore while Shree Kshethra Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Dr D Veerendra Heggade has agreed to build 1,000 houses at the cost of Rs 10 crore.

Adichunchangiri Mutt has agreed to release Rs 10 lakh apart from constructing houses and Pejwar Mutt too has assured to build houses.
Meanwhile, government officials will contribute their one day salary towards relief funds while MPs, MLAs and MLCs have declared to give their one month’s honourarium.

Damage

Gowda informed that over 152 lives and 4,600 livestock have been lost in 15 flood-hit districts. Over 2, 04,270 houses have collapsed and 25 lakh hectare cultivable land have been damaged.

He informed that state has estimated a damage of Rs 16,500 crore, which includes bridges of culvert of Rs 5,000 crore, houses worth Rs 5,000 crore, crops worth Rs 2,500 crore, infrastructure worth Rs 2,500 crore and electrical installments worth Rs 1,000 crore and tanks and water supplies worth Rs 3,500 crore.

State government has set up 1,211 relief camp where 3,55,769 people have been rehabilitated. Over 20 lakh packets of food have been distributed so far. As many as 12 choppers, 220 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel and 329 boats have been deployed to carry on rescue and rehabilitation works.

Gowda informed that State government has demanded the centre to release interim relief of Rs 10,000 crore, to depute a central study team at the flood hit areas and to declare the incident as natural calamity.


Padayatra today

Various voluntary organisations, officials of government departments and elected representatives will take out a padayatra on Wednesday morning from 10 am to 12 noon in the city to raise funds for relief of flood victims.

Deputy Commissioner V Ponnuraj said that the groups will proceed from 11 selected points in the city.

District-in-Charge Minister Krishna J Palemar urged that general public to contribute generously. He asked the people to donate new clothes and utensils. “It is not a waste disposal programme hence people should give new commodities to victims,” he said.