Daijiworld Media Network - Brahmavar (HB/SP) 

Brahmavar, Sep 10: Grant has been released for widening the road from Seetanadi to Cherkady into four-lane road. For the speedy execution of this work, a public meeting was organized at the hall of Aroor gram panchayat near here on Monday September 9 where opinion of the people about the project was sought. It was presided over by Udupi MLA, K Raghupati Bhat. The road widening plan includes land acquisition and cutting down trees that are located on the route. 

At the meeting, forest officer provided details of the trees standing on the proposed land on which the road widening is being undertaken. The people unanimously agreed that small trees can be shifted to the adjacent government land and that the gram panchayat will arrange to plant 25 saplings for each tree that is cut down for the road. The decision taken at the meeting favoured planting of high quality tree saplings instead of acacia and other local variety of trees. 

The MLA noted that the land on which road widening will be undertaken is dotted on both sides with things like overhead water tank of the panchayat, water supply pipeline, transformers, electric poles, bore wells et. He instructed the concerned to shift the basic infrastructure on first priority and sought detailed information about them from the panchayat development officers of the panchayats here. He said that the government will be providing funds for acquiring land for widening of state highways alone.   "As this road is MDR road, we will not get government funds for land acquisition. As 90 percent of the said road is located within government land, I request the people to donate the balance land free of cost," he requested. Participants of the meeting responded well to this request. 

Aroor gram panchayat president, Raju Kulal, taluk panchayat members, Nalini Pradeep Rao and Sudheer Kumar Shetty, Cherkady gram panchayat president, Harish Shetty, Asha Kotian, vice president, Uday Kamath, contractor, Muniyal Udayakumar Shetty, tahsildar, Kiran Gorayya, assistant executive engineer, Jagadish Bhat, panchayat development officers, village accountants, panchayat members and members of the general public were present.