Mohan Kuthar

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP) 

Mangaluru, Aug 17: Angered by the negligence of the department concerned towards a dangerous pothole that has been posing danger to road users near Pandith House Junction on Mani-Ullal road, members of Vijaya Games Team (VGT) staged a protest by floating paper boats in this huge pothole on Friday August 16. 

The tar of the road had peeled off at Pandith House Junction even before the rainy season started this year. Since the rains began, the hole here has been getting bigger and bigger with passage of time. The VGT group members said that the pothole has now acquired the form of a swimming pool.

They point out that thousands of vehicles use this road every day, and several accidents have occurred here because of this pothole and a number of two-wheelers have been falling across the road after their wheels dive into the pothole. They mentioned about the accident which happened on August 14 in which a scooter carrying a couple and their two children had fallen into the pothole, injuring all the four. 

VGT team members, condemning the apathy owned by the public works department and local representatives towards this pothole, duly overlooking accidents happening here on a regular basis, symbolically protested by launching paper boats in the water accumulated in the said pothole. 

Speaking on the occasion, president of this team, Guruprasad, said that his team had tried to cover the pothole with stones and mud many a time but these efforts went waste. He said that water gets accumulated here again and again, and pothole emerges repeatedly. "An underground drainage has been built near this spot. As that drainage vent has been blocked by mud, water gets accumulated on the spot and gives rise to the deepening of the pothole. Nagarika Hitarakshana Vedike and VGT had submitted complaint about this pothole to the municipal commissioner of Ullal municipality but nothing has been done so far to address the situation. We have staged symbolic protest today. If the pothole continues to exist, we will resort to stronger forms of protest," he warned. 

Rajgopal Pandith House, Raghavendra, Mitesh, Jitesh, Dhanraj, Manohar, Bharat, Ganesh, Akshay, Rajesh and elderly activist, Raghava Poojary, were present.