Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday received grievances from people belonging to different sections of the society at Government Guest House in the city. Interestingly, prominent among them were complaints against different departments.
Maraswamy and Puttaswamy, both disabled, in their petition to the chief minister said that a total of 14 disabled persons were eking out a living by running shops utilising the benefits extended by Disabled Welfare department. “However, of late, the policemen are troubling us, harassing us for no reason,” they said.
Maraswamy told the media later that they had been in the business for the last 20 years, and had also obtained the prerequisite No Objection Certificate (NOC) from Mysuru City Corporation (MCC). “Yet, we are being targeted,” he said.
Puttaswamy said, though the two were partially disabled, but, Dileep Kumar who is totally disabled, having lost both of his legs, was in dire straits.
Kumar is one among the 14 beneficiaries. Maraswamy runs a tea shop near Dasappa Circle, while Puttaswamy has a shop in Srirampura. Puttaswamy said that majority of them were involved in similar petty business around KSRTC sub-urban bus stand on Bengaluru-Nilgiri road. “We are being harassed to facilitate the traders at the shopping complex in the bus stand,” he said.
Denial
A delegation of daily wagers from the Panchayat Raj engineering wing led by Umadevi, Madappa and others alleged before the Chief Minister that the service of total 26 ‘C’ and ‘D’ group employees in the department was yet to be regularised, despite the government regularising the services of the daily wagers over a year ago. The daily wagers blamed the delay on the differences between the chief engineer of the department and the office of chief executive officer (CEO), Zilla Panchayat, Mysuru. The Panchayat Raj engineering department comes under ZP and the top officials pass the buck on each other, whenever the demand for regularisation crops up, they said.
In another case, Subramanya and Somashekar from Hale Tirumakoodalu near T Narsipur alleged that they have been severely inconvenienced due to the non-availability of drinking water from the past three months. The only three borewells in the village had become defunct.
“When the issue was brought to the notice of the officials, they directed us towards the river water, but it is not potable due to large scale contamination,” they said.
Though the village is less populated, the issue should be addressed at the earliest in the interest of tourists, as the village abuts Sangama, the confluence of river Cauvery and Kapila, popularly known for Kumbh Mela in the South.
The village comes under Varuna constituency represented by the Chief Minister in the Legislative Assembly.
