Udupi: The general body meeting of the Udupi City Municipal Council on Monday, November 30 saw a fiery start as the opposition Bharatiya Janatha Party members stormed into the well of the House demanding documents on the renovation of Vishvesaraya market. The opposition led by Yashpal Suvarna demanded documents of the tender process and so on. BJP councilors alleged that Council President Meenakshi Bannanje had received a bribe in the the project.
The uproar lasted for about an hour with BJP and Congress coucillors yelling at one another. Yashpal Suvarna said the documents were intentionally not given to the opposition councilors. The pandemonium ended only after the documents were provided to the BJP councillors.
As soon as the council meeting started once again, CMC Vice President Sandya Kumari took condemned the behavior of BJP councillors and expressed that Yashpal Suvarna had made derogatory comments against the president with an intention of humiliating her. But Yashpal denied the allegations and countered Sandya on facts. In response Sandya staged a dharna in the well of the House for a few minutes and demanded an apology from Yashpal Suvarna. However, Meenakshi convinced Sandya Kumari to return to her seat.
Later, Ramesh Kanchan of ruling party and Dinakar Shetty Herga got into heated arguments with each other. But councillors of both the parties intervened and calmed the situation down.
There were various issues that came to the fore in the house. Councillor Shyam Prasad said some areas in the city were already suffering from water scarcity. He suggested that CMC should supply water on alternative days atleast. Assistant Engineer Ganesh said the water requirement in the city was 30 million litres per day and 25 million litres per day was being pumped from Baje dam at present.
One of BJP councillors pointed out that the CMC should get a big well at Beedinagudde cleaned so that the water could be used during summer. CMC Commissioner Manjunathaiah responded that CMC had already identified a well at Kodavoor and Doddanagudde for the purpose. To deal with scarcity of water, more such water sources had been identified, he added.
Councillor Prashanth Bhat expressed concern that some mobile phone service provider companies were setting up towers without the permission of CMC. He demanded action against such defaulting companies.
In reply to Ramesh Kanchan’s query on pushcarts at various parts of the city causing severe problems for the members of the public, Manjunathaiah said CMC had already identified vending zones in the city for pushcarts to carry out their business. However, some organisations were opposing the move, he added.
Other matters like Santhekatte Market parking problems, encroachment of municipal land at Ambalpady, MESCOM issues, advertisement boards in public places, street lights and so on were discussed.
Opposition leader Dr. M R Pai, Ramesh Kanchan, Janardhan Bhandarkar, Dinakar Shetty Herga, Shyamprasad Kudva, Amrutha Krishnamurthy, Celine Karkada, Vasanthi Shetty, Yuvaraj, Harish Ram Bannanje, Sarasimha Nayak, Sumithra R Nayak, Chandrakanth Naik, Shantharam Salvonkar, Prashanth Bhat, Rashmitha Balakrishna Shetty, Vijaya Manchi, Naveen Bhandary, Shobha, Jyothi Naik, Shashiraj Kunder, Geetha Ravi Shet, Narayana Kundar, Ganesh Nergi and other councilors were present during the meeting.
