Kundapur: NH 66 in Miserable Shape, Officials say Locals Not Vacating Land
Sheeja Moodubelle
Pics: Suvarna Brahmavar
Daijiworld Media Network - Kundapur
Kundapur, Jun 21: The south-west monsoon has already hit the city and the major problem confronting people during heavy showers is floods and water logging on roads.
Kundapur is a coastal town and the Udupi-Kundapur highway (NH66) generally faces artificial floods because of the ongoing road-widening work. It can be recalled that last year, the city had witnessed heavy artificial floods in almost all low lying areas despite the precautionary measures taken up in the wake of heavy rainfall.
When we enquired about the reason for the situation recurring every year, Navayuga engineer said that Navayuga has taken up the road line contract for 30 months and further it can be extended to one year. He added that only 20 months have passed so far and another 10 months are still left.
He said that the problem is not with the road work and that the artificial flood has been created by the local people themselves. “Most of the road line is ribboned and along that, the people who have been compensated for their land are not yet vacating their property, though they have received the money from the revenue department. All of them are using local support and refusing to leave the land giving some or the other excuse,” he added.
“From Uppoor to Kundapur, 80 percent of the work has been finished and the revenue department had paid Rs 90 crore. Still, the same amount or more is to be paid to the land owners to clear the land. The work of the revenue department is working on land clearance,” he said.
He assured that if the road line is cleared for their work, the NH will be ready before the deadline. "Issuing documentation like records of the land, ownership and RTC is taking a long time and will not be done in an hour and will take many months, especially government work. Totally, 40 km of the work is done, and 17 km is left,” he said.
Another problem is with the utility services such as electrical posts, wiring, laying pipelines, and sorting out the drainage link, which is not going as smoothly as it is supposed to. This year, the monsoon may trouble the common man, but will soon be sorted.
“Kundapur has a population of about 28,595. It is not easy to have a ribbon development, and without the co-ordination of the people, development is highly impossible,” he said.
As far as accidents are concerned, it is oil, grease, and fish water from trucks which is making the road slippery and that leads to accidents in the initial stage of the monsoon. NH-in-charge K M Hegde said that it is a wrong assumption that road work is not done on time. He said that there is no delay in the construction. “Soon, all the problems will be solved and we can get a new developed road from Udupi to Kundapur,” added Hegde.
Also, because of the arrest of Navayug Constructions owner Jaganmohan Reddy in disproportionate assets case, the work has come to a halt as the court has put a stay on all the financial transactions of the company. Only work on the bridges is going on, that too at a slow pace.
The disrupted work on some stretch of the national highway and potholed roads are causing traffic bottlenecks and nightmares for motorists, especially due to the private express buses that ply at high speeds disregarding traffic rules and speed limits in order to maintain their schedule.
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