Encroachment delays road development work in Shiragavara

Despite building a bridge across River Hemavathi to provide connectivity to the state highway passing through Shiragavara village, Hassan, the work is not serving the purpose as there is no connecting road.

The work on the bridge was carried out spending crores of rupees in Kodlipet Gram Panchayat limits, four years ago.

But, the development work of the road was pending for a long time as the road has been allegedly encroached upon.

Officials inspected the encroached road on Tuesday.

An action plan was prepared three years ago to construct a one-kilometre road stretch to provide connectivity from Kelakodlu to the bridge. Even though the tender was passed two years ago, two persons have allegedly encroached the road.

“Farmers from either side of the road have handed over the right of the land, to the government. But, the alleged encroachers are not cooperating. The encroachments should be cleared to initiate the road development work” said the villagers.

Out of the 7.72 acres of land at survey number 141 in the Devara Bana in Kelakodli village, 2.72 acres belongs to Sri Mavinakatte Basavanna Temple. As there is no proper road, the people have been using the mud road in front of the temple. There is a dangerous curve on this stretch and it is not suitable for road construction.

The rest of the land has been allegedly encroached by brothers Dinesh and Shivalinga, accused temple committee member D E Prasanna.

He said from the point of safety of the historic Sri Mavinakatte Basavanna Temple, the road should be constructed in a scientific way. The new road, if done, will aid in tourism and trade activities.

The local elected representatives and deputy commissioner should intervene, said, temple committee chairman K B Ramesh, Gram Panchayat member K R Chandrashekhar, contractor Paramesh and leader Tyagaraj.

Raitha Sangha convener Somanna said that a letter has been written to the Hemavathi reservoir project engineer, revenue department and survey officials, requesting to solve the road issue.

The forest department should give permission to fell the trees which hinder the road widening work. The local forest officials have written to the DFO in this regard, he added.

Hemavathi reservoir project engineer Puttaswamy, Kodlipet forest officer Govind Raj, staff, Gram Panchayat members Prasanna, D K Geeta, Ashwini, Tyagaraj, village leaders K B Mahesh, Karunakar, Rajesh, Sharat, Chetan, Ashram, Saurav, Keshavamurthy and Manjunath were present.