BJP Councillors walk out of CMC meeting
Udupi: BJP Councillors walked out of the Udupi City Municipal council general meeting on Wednesday, August 31.
Raising the issue of Visvesvaraya Building demolition and proposed new building, opposition leader Dr M R Pai said that as a Councillor of Shiribeedu ward, which the building comes under, without informing me the council set the agenda for the meeting. He demanded that the agenda be dropped in the meeting but president Meenakshi refused to drop the proposed agenda. BJP members, led by Dr M R Pai, walked out of the council meeting. The president then postponed the meeting for 5 minutes and tried to convince the BJP members, but in vain. Later president Meenakshi adjourned the meeting.
Later clarifying on the issue of Visvesvaraya building, commissioner Manjunath said that the Visvesvaraya commercial complex will be built at the existing old market area adjacent to the KSRTC bus stand. The structure would come up under public-private partnership (PPP) model. The proposal has been passed during the 2010 February meeting when BJP administration was ruling in the CMC. The facility report was passed in 2012 and work was allotted to IDEX a government Agency of Bengaluru.
The complex would be in the ground+three format structure. A spacious parking area would be part of the construction. Currently, the land available for the proposed project is 26568 Sq ft. The CMC had called for a Pre-bid meeting chaired by the deputy commissioner in May 2016. We had also called for tenders from the construction companies giving publicity in the newspapers. As per the tender invitation, only two companies participated in the tender process. One Developers failed to provide proper technical reports along with the tender and the project was given to another developers. The land will be given for a 30 year lease period. The building should comprise various divisions and compartments for hassle-free shopping. All essential commodities should be sold in the same building, he added.
Raising the issue of road potholes Councillor Yaspal Suvarna and Ramesh Kanchan said that there were potholes on the road at MIT Bus Stand, Manipal Bus Stand and Syndicate Circle and many other places in the City. Ganesh Chathurthi is nearing, during the festival people will face problems due to the potholes. They demanded to fill the potholes with the wet mix as a temporary solution.
Vice president Sandhya Kumari was also present. Many of the Ruling congress party Councillors were absent for the meeting.
