Beach Road in Shambles? Potholes,Coal Dust & Piles of Mud Welcome Visitors to Panambur Beach?
Mangaluru : Panambur Beach suppose to be one of the most happening beaches of Mangaluru, is an ideal tourist hot spot with sparkling white sand, turquoise water and a plethora of adventure activities. Located near the Mangalore Port, this beach is famous for its horse rides and breathtaking view of the sunrise and sunset. Panambur is an idyllic beach that depicts beauty and fine blend of cosmopolitan culture of the Mangaluru city, making it the most visited beach in coastal Karnataka. The beach aura warms up during the annual carnivals organized by the district authorities that attract a huge influx of visitors. The festivity includes boat races, air shows, kite festival and sand sculpture contests. Visitors during summertime enjoy a plethora of water sports ranging from swimming, jet skiing to other adventure activities like sand biking and paragliding. And visitors can satiate their taste buds and relish scrumptious delicacies and authentic flavors of Kudla cuisine at the food stalls parked near the beach.
And when such facilities are the good part of the Panambur Beach, but the road leading to the beach is in shambles. Wading through clouds of coal dust, water filled potholes, slush and piles of dug up mud due to the ongoing construction on their way to this popular Panambur Beach in Mangaluru is an nightmare for thousands of visitors. The existing road, about 1.5 km long, passes through the NMPT property along the port’s cargo handling facility from the National Highway. Regular transportation of coal through trucks from the coal handling facility has made the beach approach road almost impossible to traverse for general public.
Though coal is completely covered with tarpaulin sheets during transportation, spillages as well as dust on truck wheels enter the road. NMPT’s effort to confine dust cloud through sprinkling of water earlier has not served the purpose, instead has created another woe — coal slush. A group from Chikamagalur, who were on their way back from the beach said the pleasure they had on the beach was short-lived. “It’s miserable and embarrassing to walk either on the road or the pavement that are covered with coal dust, and also bunch of potholes on the road. Why can’t the concerned authorities do something about this, so that people like us won’t face all the inconveniences,” he said. There were quite a few other visitors who had been facing similar difficulties. Those riding two-wheelers to the beach too were the affected lot due to this dilapidated road, filled with potholes, and coal slush
Only solution for this ongoing problem is to have a different entrance road to the beach, away from the present road which is close to the Port, where hundreds of trucks moving and also park along the side of the road, creating inconveniences to the public. Presently the only connecting road from NH 66 to the beach belongs to the New Mangalore Port Trust- and the present condition of this road makes travel a nightmare?
