Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Oct 16: A committee has been formed to pursue its demand for laying an expressway between Mangalore and Karwar, parallel to the Konkan railway line, to mitigate the problems the road users have been coming across in using the national highway and also towards developing new areas.

Convener of the committee Kenchanur Somashekhar Shetty, addressing a press conference here on Wednesday October 15 noted that widening of the national highway 17 between the two coastal cities would prove to be very costly, as it will encounter so many problems because of the facts that many towns have come up and grown by their sides.

The bridges along with the current national highway are old and cannot stand the burden of heavy vehicles and increasing traffic. The expressway, if built with quality materials and by sticking to standard procedures can solve this problem. The current NH can be used as an alternative route and by the short-distance travelers bound for places on that road, he felt. "Problem of land acquisition and resistance against it will come down by a great extent if the expressway that runs away from populated towns is laid. Along the railway line, the distance between Kundapur and Mangalore will be cut short by about 29 kms.  In some stretches like Maravante, national highway is very narrow and there is no scope of broadening it," it pointed out.

Members of the committee, Subrahmanya Padukone, Ramadas Nayak, Shivananda Shetty and Mepu Prabhakar Shetty were present at the press conference.