Delay in multi-village water scheme irks Ramanath Rai

'Out of 6 projects sanctioned to Bantwal 4 years ago, none have been implemented'

District-in-Charge Minister B Ramanath Rai took a dig at the officials for the inordinate delay in the progress in implementing multi-village water scheme in the district. Of the 20 projects, six projects were sanctioned to Bantwal taluk four years ago, but none of the projects have been implemented so far, he rued.

He was chairing the Zilla Panchayat KDP review meeting for the first quarter at Netravati hall at ZP premises on Thursday. Furnishing details about the status of the project, ZP engineer said, a detailed survey report of the six projects sanctioned for Bantwal taluk was presented and the projects are waiting for the grants. Of the 14 new projects, PSR (primary survey report) presentation has been completed for 10 projects and survey work has been completed for the remaining four projects.

Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer K N Vijayaprakash said that Rs 324 crore was sanctioned for the first 20 projects and in addition, 24 new projects have been sanctioned to Dakshina Kannada. The minister insisted the officers to complete the survey work and PSR and DSR presentations within the time limit. The district has abundant water resource due to which there is large scope for implementing multi-village water scheme. The projects should be implemented without any further delay so as to meet the water scarcity during summer, he said.

Demand for post-metric hostels

District Social Welfare Officer Arun Furtado said there was a need for opening new post metric hostels in the district. Though three pre-metric hostels were upgraded as post-metric hostels to accommodate students seeking admission, as many as 571 students were refused admissions due to lack of seat availability. “The maintenance of BCM hostels has become difficult due to the unavailability of subsidised LPG cylinders and rice at BPL price. But, the budget allocated to the department has not seen an increase,” he said. The CEO said that 38 wardens posts in BCM hostels are lying vacant.

When the problem of addition and deletion of names from ration cards was raised, Food and Civil Supplies Deputy Director Sharanabasappa said there was provision for addition and deletion of names while renewing the ration cards.

The process of ration card renewal has begun. The department has so far received 13,000 applications of which 6,000 applications are from BPL card holders. A total of 548 renewed BPL cards have been distributed, he said.

Road work

On the four-laning of B C Road-Hassan national highway, the NH engineer said the land acquisition process has been notified and acquisition will be completed within one and a half year, after which the land will be handed over to the National Highways for laying four-lane.

When MLA J R Lobo demanded for the temporary shifting of ‘Kalasha’ from Pumpwell for constructing a flyover and replacing it after the flyover work, NH Project Director Shriram Misra denied the idea. The ‘Kalasha’ will be damaged in the shifting process, he said.

“We have studied the feasibility of widening Mangalore to Shimoga road and have proposed to lay four lane from Mangalore to Moodbidri and two lane from Moodbidri to Karkala.

The road from Karkala to Shimoga can not be widened as it comes under Kuduremukh National park area,” he said. On developing service roads and drains in some parts of the city, he said a separate proposal will be floated for the same.

Deputy Commissioner N Prakash and ZP President Koragappa Naik and others were present.