Silvester D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network - Brahmavar
Brahmavar, May 20: Talks held at the Brahmavar Taluk office on Monday with the tahsildar, inspector and toll officers demanding the continuation of the exemption for vehicles for payment of toll under the jurisdiction of Kota Zilla Panchayat in Sastana toll failed. Talks will resume on Tuesday.
On Saturday. the leaders of the Highway Awareness Committee and locals staged a protest at the Sastana Toll.
Inspector Diwakar P M of Brahmavar held talks with officials on Monday and promised to solve the problem. Accordingly, a meeting of Highway Awareness Committee leaders was held in the Tahsildar office under the leadership of Tahsildar Srikanta S Hegde and inspector.
In the meeting, the president of the committee, Shyamsundara Nayari, presented the problems to the authorities and convinced them to continue the toll exemption that the locals were getting since 2018 as a result of the struggle.
Pritam Ganguly, an officer of Highway Construction 1, who has won the toll contract, replied to this. According to the national highway rules across India, locals can travel by paying Rs.310 per month to pass the tolls. He said, "We cannot do anything as this is a rule of the highway department," he said.
The meeting was adjourned till Tuesday, as the officials did not get a reasonable reply. Talks will be held with the National Highway engineer on Tuesday to find a solution to the problem again.
Sub-inspector Madhu of Brahmavar police station, Tejaswi of Kota police station, Sudha Prabhu, committee leaders Pratap Shetty, Vithala Pujari, Alvin Andrade, Nagaraja Ganiga, Dinesh Ganiga and others were present in the meeting.