Mangaluru: Mayor of Mangaluru city, Harinath called for a press meet on Tuesday, October 4 to disseminate information of various development tasks taken up by the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC). Under the three phases of city development projects, as many as 155 out of 293 projects have already been completed and the remaining 135 are on the way to completion.
The Chief Minister has granted Rs 100 crore for the first phase of city development projects out of which four tenders have been called for and others have been completed. Under the second phase, 89 projects of 124 have reached completion, while the others are almost finished. Out of 169 projects, 66 have been completed under the third phase. The fourth phase however is to deal with footpath and drainage works all over main roads in the city.
Speaking about the projects taken up by MCC for the development of the city, Harinath said, “Work has begun on Kankanady road after there were complaints from citizens in the area. Kadri and Mallikatte junctions will be developed as soon as possible. By December, a mini Town Hall will be inaugurated and so will the new market in Kavoor. Over the past few months, the Health Officer of MCC had made a survey on public hygiene in market areas and accordingly, MCC has sanctioned a substantial amount for building public toilets in various markets.”
Responding to Monappa Bhandary’s allegations against MCC regarding the lack of public work being done, Harinath said that the City Corporation is doing a lot of work that Monappa Bhandary is not aware of. “As far as the smart city project is concerned, 50 per cent fund share from the Centre and State Governments will be used to take up more projects. Moreover, his allegation on funds of Pumpwell bus stand being used to build carriage roads in the area is half baked. We had called for tenders to build these roads and not building them out of the bus stand funds,” he retorted.
Lashing out at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) and the bad roads which lead to MRPL, Harinath said that he had received complaints from the locals saying the roads had gone for a toss. Even after eight days since he wrote a letter to them requesting to repair the roads, they did not respond. “I have written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Mangaluru DC about this issue. The Chief Minister responded instructing the DC to take action on the four and half kilometer stretch of asphalt by asking MRPL to repair the roads,” he added.
“A 20 day buffer period is provided to MRPL to start construction of the roads before the MCC Committee members get on to the field and protest against MRPL,” Harinath concluded.
